


Fight or Flight

by SoshiKi



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Defenders (Marvel TV), The Gifted (TV 2017)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adopted Character, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, F/M, Human Disaster Matt Murdock, Hurt/Comfort, Marvel References, Mentions of Mutants, Oblivious Peter Parker, Parent Pepper Potts, Parent Tony Stark, Protective Avengers, Protective Matt Murdock, Protective Pepper Potts, Protective Tony Stark, Reference to The Gifted, Superhero Original Character, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:48:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 34,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25410391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoshiKi/pseuds/SoshiKi
Summary: Ashley Evangeline Carter has experienced a lot of hardships in life. She was adopted at a young age and subsequently abused by her parents when her little brother came along. When she was just twelve years old, she experienced her powers for the first time. She tried to hide them for as long as she could, but after a particularly rough beating, her parents found out and quickly left the city.For six months she had trained with Matt Murdock - also known as the Devil of Hell's Kitchen, learning how to fight and use her powers to help those in New York City that needed it. He didn't know she was homeless and neither did her school friends Peter, MJ and Ned. But all of that was about to change when one school project landed her in the company of Tony Stark and the Avengers. But can they save her before she is hunted down by an evil force lurking in the city?
Relationships: Matt Murdock & Original Female Character(s), Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Pepper Potts & Original Female Character, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Original Female Character(s), Tony Stark & Original Female Character(s), Wanda Maximoff & Original Female Character(s), Wanda Maximoff/Vision
Comments: 13
Kudos: 58





	1. Chapter 1

No one noticed when another young girl appeared with a tent and very few belongings in one of the quieter areas of New York City. Sheltered by a few trees, she had pitched a tent, bordering on her school field, with little more than the clothes on her back and nowhere else to go. Ashley Evangeline Carter was fifteen years old and was completely and utterly alone.

After two weeks, she had settled into something of a routine. Her alarm clock (which she hoped had a couple more months of battery life left) would sound off at seven in the morning and she would get dressed and brush her hair. She didn’t have many clothes to choose from, two pairs of jeans, a few t-shirts, a couple of hooded sweatshirts and some underwear. She only had with her whatever she could fit in her backpack. At quarter past, she walked the length of the school field and arrived at the front gates. She spent most days in school keeping her head down, helping herself to several portions of free fruit (courtesy of the school’s desperate need to keep the kids off junk food) to stave off the hunger pains, and avoiding her best – and only – friend MJ, who’s inquisitive mind was getting far too suspicious for Ashley’s liking. Thankfully, avoiding MJ was getting easier as any free time between lessons was mainly focused on her new boyfriend, Peter Parker. But Peter presented a different set of problems.

Ashley wouldn’t say she was best friends with Peter. She admired his academic genius and the four of them – Ashley, Peter, MJ and Ned – would often spend their lunch times together, but this was mostly because of MJ's new friendship with them. She certainly didn’t dislike Peter - or at least not until he started asking lots of probing questions when they got partnered up for a project together for Computer Science. They had to develop a fully-functioning app that would somehow benefit the students in the school, who would be asked to trial the different apps the class created. Ashley was good at coding and programming, so she built the app, while Peter did the research. They were building an app for the school that included maps of the campus (designed by Peter), a cloud schedule which teachers could upload assignment due dates to, which would help the teachers to plan so that the students didn’t have a dozen huge deadlines all at once. There would also be links to useful revision websites, flash cards and a messaging function for students to ask their teachers questions about school work or assignments.

“So,” Peter started one Thursday afternoon. The two of them were sat in the computer lab – Peter was sat making up some sample flash cards for the app based on the subjects he was currently studying, while Ashley was creating the cloud calendar. “What’s going on between you and MJ?” Ashley shrugged, eyes not wavering from the code she was writing on screen. “MJ says you guys don’t really talk or hang out anymore.”

“I’ve been studying,” Ashley mumbled in reply.

“It’s just that you don’t eat with us anymore and MJ’s worried about you.”

Ashley sighed, finally looking up from the screen and looking straight at Peter. “I’m fine. Just focus on the work, it’s due in two weeks.”

But Ashley was very much conscious of the fact that she was far from fine. She was living in a tent on the edge of the school field, with only a few changes of clothes, even fewer possessions and no-one and nowhere to call home.

As soon as the bell rang, she dashed out of the room, not sparing Peter a second glance. She made her way across the school field, and once she was sure no-one had followed her, she dived into the tent she had set up between the trees. She finished the homework she hadn’t been able to complete at lunch time, before gearing up for the evening.

Once night fell, Ashley changed into a pair of black jeans, t-shirt and a black hoodie. Before pulling up the hood, she fixed a tattered purple scarf round her face, covering her nose and mouth. She walked out into the city, not minding the cold chill that spiked down her back where two matching slits were cut out, framing two thin, pink scars. She turned into an empty alleyway, using the cover of darkness to spread her wings. Quite literally.

Two large black wings, each wing spanning the length of her body, grew from the scars on her back. She stretched out the large expanse of feathers, which were almost invisible against the night sky. With one soaring leap, she was up in the air, gliding across the New York skyline. There was something rather freeing about flying through the city. The night was fairly quiet, with mostly just a few dog walkers out and a handful of joggers. However, she didn’t get very far before she picked up on a disturbance.

She landed on a nearby rooftop as soon as she heard the distressed shout. Her eyes landed on a jogger that had passed by earlier – she could recognise the neon pink leg warmers anywhere. A man had a vice grip on the woman’s wrist. His face was obscured by a black scarf and a beanie hat. The whole outfit reminded Ashley of her own – they were both clearly trying to hide their identities, but her reason was not so that she could prey on innocent young women.

“NO!” The woman screamed below. “LET ME GO!”

Ashley jumped from the roof top, landing gracefully on her tip toes in front of the entrance to the dimly lit alley. Neither the woman nor her attacker had noticed her, so she made herself known, clearing her throat before speaking calmly. “I think the lady said no.”

Both of them froze, the woman's wrist still grasped firmly in the thug's grip. Ashley took that moment to strike. She focused her mind, her energy reaching out to the world around her with violet, electric tendrils, curling like smoke around her chosen target. There was a trash can lying on the floor behind the thug. Ashley took hold of it with her energy and brought it smacking into the back of the thug's head with full force. It was almost comical, the way he fell to the ground, face quickly meeting the tarmac below.

The woman screamed, and as soon as she realised the iron grip on her was gone, sprinted up the road ahead. Ashley rolled her eyes and nudged the thug on the ground with her foot, turning him over on his back. He was out cold, blood dripping from a nasty wound on the back of his head. She stared after the woman, who was still running and rolled her eyes. “You're welcome!” She called after the woman, before launching back into the sky.

She spent another half hour gliding through the sky between the skyscrapers that outlined New York City. It was a Monday night and she was about ready to call it quits until the sound of shattering glass, quickly followed by a blaring alarm, reached her ears. The building she was currently perched on was one of the numerous banks in the area. Ashley quickly put two and two together and came up with an out-of-hours bank heist. She moved to the edge of the roof top, before taking a swan dive to the street below, flipping over at the last second so she landed on her feet. As her feet touched the pavement, she heard an audible gasp behind her, but she assumed it was a regular passer-by and focused on the job at hand. She followed the robbers into the bank – they yet again were dressed in all black. There were five men in total, all wearing an ensemble of jeans, t-shirts and leather jackets, like some high school biker gang. Covering their faces were black balaclavas and honestly, it all looked a bit cliché.

She decided not to make her presence known right away this time, instead taking the time to scope out the area and form some kind of plan of attack. The thieves had of course gone straight for the vault, which was highly predictable, but also left her fewer options of attack.

A twinkle caught her eye where the moonlight reflected on some of the broken glass in the entrance way. The thieves had actually left her the perfect weapon. Her energy sought out the numerous pieces of glass littering the floor, snaking around each individual fragment and lifting them into the air. She moved further into the bank until she had all of the robbers in sight, which left her exposed, although she didn’t give them chance to attack before the shattered glass was flying at them at break-neck speed. All five of them fell, clutching at their faces and necks where the glass had embedded itself. Ashley was about to grab the fire hose from the wall to tie them up with until the police could arrive, but it had seemed someone else had a better idea...

***

Peter Parker had been on a patrol of his own that night. After a quick dinner with Aunt May before she had to leave for a night shift, he pulled on his suit (courtesy of Tony Stark) and swung out the window. His night had been quite fruitful. He stopped a few muggings, rescued a cat from a tree, told an elderly Romanian lady which subway train to take to get to Brooklyn Heights and returned a stolen bike. He was about to head home to finish his homework when he heard the shattering glass a couple of streets over.

Peter launched into the air, swinging between the buildings before stopping in front of the First Capital Bank. He was perched on the side of the building opposite and watched as five criminals, all decked out in the same black garb ( _Come on guys, really? It's like you're not even trying!)_ entered the bank, the glass shards crunching under steel toecap-clad feet. He was about to swing head first into the bank and take out all five of them when his ‘spidey sense’ tingled at the base of his neck, followed by a rush of wind. In front of him, he witnessed someone seemingly fall out of the sky, flipping themselves over in mid air before silently landing on their feet. He gasped when he made out a pair of huge dark wings – each wing was probably wider than the girl wearing them. She was also dressed in black, apart from a tattered purple scarf, edges fraying and holes developing in the material, around her face. When the moonlight bounced off the wings, they looked as though they were embedded with thousands of tiny crystals and if it weren't for Peter's impeccably good eyesight, those shining crystals would be the only give away the wings were even there.

Peter decided to watch from his perch as she entered the bank after the robbers. She wasn't sneaking necessarily, but Peter could not hear the sound of her boots, which were also looking a bit worn (there were several small tears in the cheap leather and the trim was starting to come away at the back), as they carefully stepped over the shattered glass walkway. He jumped across the street, landing above the doorway for the bank. He climbed over the entrance into the bank, crawling over the ceiling to keep a low profile.

The girl seemed to falter for a moment, quickly looking around the area with a calculated gaze. Her gaze caught on something underneath Peter who had pressed himself flat against the high ceiling. After a moment, purple smoke left her outstretched fingers, crackling with electricity. The smoke reached out to the glass shards that had previously formed the large double doors and they lifted into the air, moving towards their puppeteer. With a quick flick of her wrist, the glass shards were flying towards the robbers – or evil T-Birds, as Peter was now referring to them.

All five men fell to their knees as the tiny shards embedded themselves into their skin, like crystal barbs. One guy was covering his left eye, blood dripping from the small gaps between his fingers. Peter winced slightly at that one. Realising that she had completely incapacitated them, she moved towards a fire hose, with every purpose of using it to tie the robbers up for the police when they finally arrived. Peter chose that as his moment to intervene. He swung across to a nearby pillar and took aim, shooting a web grenade at the group huddled on the floor. The web covered them all, eliciting more groans of discomfort and pain as they tried to fight against the inexplicably strong webbing that was now trapping them from making a hasty retreat.

The girl stared at Peter for the longest moment, eyes narrowed in a calculating gaze. For a brief moment Peter wondered if she might hurt him, but that was quickly gone when she turned around and ran for the exit. Peter followed, using his webs to get there before her and effectively blocking her way out.

“Hey, wait a second! That was so _cool_ what you did back there!” The words left his mouth before he had even formed a proper thought. “I'm Spider-Man, by the way.” He held out a hand for the girl to shake, but she just stared at the red, spandex-covered appendage like it had somehow offended her.

“I know,” was the only comment she offered. She tried to push Peter out of her way, but he was like a stone wall and was not going to budge.

“What's your name? Where did you get your powers? Are you from Queens too? Maybe we could work together!” Peter heard how he sounded in his head, and he couldn’t blame the girl for getting angry at him as she desperately tried to leave the building. Sirens were growing louder in the distance, which meant the police would be there very soon.

“Will you get out of the freaking way?” Peter took a step back when she threw her arms up in the air in exasperation. “The cops are on their way and I for one am not spending the night in a jail cell, and I know for a fact that you're already on their shit-list. So, for the love of God, just move!”

Peter stepped to the side and just watched in amazement as she took off into the sky without another word. Within seconds, she was lost to the dark sky, her wings creating a camouflage against the night. Peter took off himself, swinging dazedly back to his apartment. He couldn't wait to tell Aunt May about the evening's adventure.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something I should probably mention about this fic - it's set after Civil War, but Thanos and Infinity War never happened. Happy reading!

Ashley was feeling rather riled up after her encounter with the web-slinging superhero. She didn’t class herself as a superhero or even as a masked vigilante. She just used the gifts she had to help others and kept herself out of the spotlight where possible. But tonight, she had been careless. Spider-Man was very much in the public eye and that was a place she did not want to be.

She landed in the woods behind the school field and crawled back into her tent. It was getting close to midnight, so she didn’t want to get to bed too late. She changed into some pyjamas that were sadly rather on the short side and weren't in the best condition. She had had the same pair for the last four years, despite the shortness of them exposing her stomach and the numerous holes that had frayed in the material. She got into her sleeping bag – she had bought this along with the tent on the cheap with the little savings she had saved over the years. Her grandparents used to give her an allowance, which she hid inside some old socks. When they died last year, she didn't get any more money, so she saved what she had until now. She pulled the sleeping bag around her tighter and drifted into a fitful sleep.

Ashley shot up awake in her sleeping bag early the next morning. Beads of sweat clung to her pale skin and a freezing shiver curled down her spine. She felt worse when she woke that morning than when she had gone to sleep the night before. For starters, she was unbearably cold. There was a dull throbbing in her head and aches in the back of her neck and shoulders. Getting dressed was a chore that day. She tucked her long, messy locks into the back of her hoodie and pulled the hood up to provide some kind of protection against the harsh morning sun.

She took a slow walk towards the small lake in the woods, (well, it was more of a pond in reality) and washed her face in a desperate attempt to clear her of the sticky sweat that clung to her skin. She felt a little more awake after splashing the cold water on her skin, but it didn't rid her of her headache or the dull pains in her muscles. Ashley tried to shake off the tired feeling and walked back to her tent to pick up her school bag before setting off for school.

Her morning classes of English and Maths passed by in a hazy blur. As she left the Maths class at the beginning of lunch, she was stopped by MJ, who blocked her path to get out of the classroom. MJ had an unimpressed look on her face, but Ashley couldn’t see the hint of concern reflected in almond eyes.

“-ley? Ash!” MJ had asked her something. Her eyes had grown uncomfortably wide as she tried to recall what MJ had just said. Coming up blank, she had no choice but to ask her to repeat. “I asked if you wanted to hang out at lunch.”

“Oh, um, sure...” Ashley regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth. Clearly, she wasn’t thinking straight, otherwise she would have come up with some excuse as to why she couldn’t sit and eat lunch with her friend.

As if MJ knew what was going on in her friend’s head, she grabbed tightly onto Ashley's arm and essentially dragged her into the canteen. The quartet of Ashley, MJ, Peter and Ned were queueing up for food, with two of the group in a deep animated conversation regarding whether Spider-Man or Captain America was the strongest enhanced individual. It was a fairly innocent conversation to most, but Ashley’s mind couldn’t help but wander back to the previous night and her brief encounter with the masked vigilante. She knew of course what he could do, which included but was not limited to lifting buses full of people in the middle of a busy freeway. But he came across as rather a bumbling buffoon when they met the previous night. She had an inkling then that just maybe, Spider-Man wasn't the grown-up Avenger most believed him to be.

Ashley was soon distracted from her musings when fingers snapped in front of her face in a crude attempt to capture her attention. MJ was standing in front of her, sketchbooks grasped tightly in hand, and an angry expression on her face. Peter and Ned were stood rigid under the glare, whereas it was one that Ashley was rather accustomed to. Growing up, that look was usually reserved for when MJ found out that Ashley's parents had done something particularly cruel, such as not letting her eat or locking her in her room for the whole weekend, while her parents took her little brother to visit the theme park. MJ's glare was particularly good at getting the truth out of an otherwise tight-lipped Ashley.

“What's going on with you?” MJ's tone was accusing. “You’re acting like more of a space case than usual.”

Ashley shrugged her shoulders, idly staring at the cheesy sludge on display in front of them that the school were calling pasta bake. She was actually glad she had no money for food – it didn’t exactly look appetising. Knowing full well that MJ wouldn’t drop the subject, she tried to quickly come up with an excuse. “Sorry, I’ve just been studying a lot recently, so I'm kind of tired.” Just to prove her point, she let out a loud yawn.

She stood quietly in the queue behind MJ, who was hesitantly loading her tray up with vegetarian lasagne. Ashley’s eyes skipped right by the mains on offer for lunch and settled on a basket by the till. After MJ had paid for her food, she picked up an apple and banana from the dinner-lady and joined MJ at their usual table at the back. She took a bite out of the apple and was so very glad for the school's healthy eating promotion.

“Is that all you're eating?” MJ asked, the concerned gaze from earlier returning to her eyes.

Ashley nodded as she swallowed her bite. “I'm not that hungry and _that_ -" She pointed at the tray of food in front of MJ, “looks like a week's worth of regret and suffering on a plate.” MJ snorted at Ashley’s fairly accurate description of her lunch.

Peter and Ned joined them at the table a few moments later, now having a very serious debate about who would win in a fight, Luke Skywalker or Thor? It was a question Ashley wasn't sure she needed answering, but she was sure she would get an answer by the end of their lunch hour regardless. She finished her apple as she listened to the boys continue to argue and took out her homework to get a head start. She was distracted about ten minutes later by a sharp poke in her side from Peter.

“Hey, we still need to work on our Computer Science project.” Ashley stared at him blankly, waiting to see if he was going to elaborate on the obvious fact he just stated. “I asked Mr Stark, and he says you can come over to the tower with me after school today.”

Ashley continued to stare at him, but this time a look of disbelief on her face. She never doubted the fact that Peter had an internship at Stark industries – he was just that clever. If anyone from school was going to get an opportunity like that, her (extremely small amount of) money was on Peter or MJ (although she didn’t doubt that Ned could easily get an apprenticeship at Microsoft or Apple). But the idea, that he had asked _the_ Mr Stark if he could bring another student to _the_ Stark Industries to work on a school project seemed ludicrous. At a loss for words, she simply nodded her head.

***

Peter was practically bouncing in his seat during his Chemistry lesson that day. It was his last class of the day and he was excited to spend the weekend at Avengers Tower. Aunt May was working overtime, so Mr Stark had offered to have him for the weekend, so they could work in the lab together. Before lab work though, he had to make sure his school work was done, so he asked if he could bring Ashley over to the tower with him to finish their project. The last fifteen minutes of the lesson were completely lost on Peter. He had no idea what the teacher had said and by the time the bell rang, Peter wasn't even sure what lesson he had just been sitting in.

Peter was out the door as soon as the first bell had rung and rushed over to the art block to find Ashley clearing up after a painting session. Peter caught a glimpse of her canvas as she hung it up to dry. The painting was done with watercolours and charcoal, the charcoal standing out bold against the violet hues of the water colour. The charcoal lines were drawn into a figure. At the very bottom of the canvas was the silhouette of a girl, curled in a tight ball and seemingly holding herself together. But more interestingly was the pair of black wings towering over her, stretching out from the figure's back. Peter reckoned it was some kind of symbolism, but his mind couldn’t help but drift back to the girl from his patrol the previous night.

Ashley slowly walked out the classroom, feet stumbling over air a few times. Peter frowned as he took in the dark circles and sunken cheeks of his friend. Her tired emerald eyes met his and she cracked a small, fractured smile.

“Hey Peter,” she greeted him as she left the classroom. Her voice was quiet and slightly hoarse. Peter remembered their first day at school. They had both been awarded scholarships to Midtown for their remarkable grades and high IQs. He remembered that Ashley was rather timid and was intimidated the first time they met and that hadn’t really changed all that much, but Ashley had made an impression as the first person that had addressed MJ as such and not Michelle. The two were inseparable with one rarely being seen without the other. They both joined the Academic Decathlon team together and after that, MJ had started hovering around Peter and Ned before finally becoming friends with the two boys. All four of them were Mr Harrington's star pupils and spent a lot of time studying together, but shortly after Peter and MJ had started dating, Ashley stopped hanging out with them.

It started a couple of weeks ago when she stopped joining them for lunch, choosing instead to study in the library. Now that Peter thinks about it, it was around that time that she started to look tired and sad. Peter wondered if he had perhaps done something to upset her. Did she feel he had taken her best friend away? Peter's mind reeled at the thought as they walked out of the school.

Waiting outside in a sleek black Audi, was Happy. Peter grinned, forgetting his previous reverie and opened the door to let Ashley in. She stumbled in her steps as she climbed into the luxury car.

“Hey Happy,” Peter greeted. He shut the door behind him and pulled out his phone to let Aunt May know he was on his way to the tower.

“Hey kid, good day at school?” Over the past few months, Happy had developed more of a tolerance for Peter, even going as far to having a liking for the boy. A lot of that had come from spending time with Peter's Aunt, who absolutely adored him.

“Yeah it was pretty awesome! I got full marks on my Biochem test last week. Oh, Happy, this is my friend Ashley, we're working on a computing project together.”

“Hey kid,” Happy greeted shortly, his attention focused on the road. Ashley stuttered a muffled ‘hi' and turned to stare out the window as they drove through the crowded New York streets.

Peter fished his phone out of his pocket. With the New York traffic, it was sure to be a long drive, so he found one of his inspiring, feel-good playlists and hit shuffle. He detangled the wires of his earphones and put one in his ear, offering the other to Ashley with a light tap on her arm. She gave him a short smile as she took the earphone, her smile growing slightly as she heard the familiar tune of a Muse song.

The two sat in a fairly comfortable silence, something Happy never thought possible with the spider-boy. Around half an hour later, he swung the car round into the garage underneath the tower. All three of them hopped out and Happy led the two teens into the elevator, pushing the button for the penthouse on the top floor.

As the elevator started to rise, a loud female voice spoke, startling Ashley. “Welcome back Happy. Welcome back Peter. Who's your friend?”

Peter shot Ashley an apologetic glance after she shrunk back into the corner of the small area. “Hi FRIDAY. This is my friend Ashley. We're working on a school project together.”

“Hello Ashley, it’s nice to meet you.” The shrill voice boomed in Ashley’s ears. Peter didn’t miss the flinch or the way Ashley's brows knitted together in a pained expression.

“H-Hi FRIDAY. It’s nice to meet you too.” Ashley of course knew all about FRIDAY, the AI that Tony Stark had built into his life. She was particularly fascinated by what she had read about FRIDAY being a near-enough sentient being, who could learn and think. She hoped one day to create something even half as amazing as FRIDAY.

About ten minutes later, they had passed over fifty floors before arriving at the penthouse. As the metal doors opened, Ashley was greeted with a bright space overlooking New York City. The large room was walled head to toe with glass windows. The afternoon sun brightly lit the large space, reflecting off of the shiny kitchen surfaces and the gigantic flat screen TV mounted on one wall. The sheer size of the screen easily rivalled the cinema screens that she had watched a couple of times with MJ over the years when they were celebrating birthdays. There were several pieces of furniture, including some fancy plush sofas and some bean bags, which took away from the posh atmosphere that Pepper Potts had no doubt tried to create.

Standing at the far end of the room, tablet in hand reviewing Iron Man specs, was the genius himself, Tony Stark. He looked up from his work as the two teens stepped out of the elevator and wandered into the large, open space – one teen at a considerably faster pace than the other. As Peter approached him, the man embraced him in a tight hug, clapping him on the back lightly before letting go.

“Hey Pete, how was school?” Peter began to launch into a detailed recount of his school day, including the results of his test from last week, while Ashley continued to tiptoe further into the room, eyes darting to stare at the artwork and furniture filling the space. Tony seemed to notice the girl's daze and smirked to himself proudly as he walked up to her. “You must be Ashley. Peter has told us a lot about you.” Ashley froze at being addressed directly by Tony Stark. She glanced at Peter briefly, eyes wide and too scared to reply. Sensing the unease, Tony continued speaking, trying to lighten the atmosphere. “Pete says you’re the smartest kid in school, which is saying something...”

“I-I'm not...” Ashley stuttered out. She nervously picked at her finger nails as she spoke, refusing to meet anyone’s gaze. “Peter is definitely the smartest... and MJ and Ned are smarter than me anyway.”

“That's not true!” Peter yells, and even Tony cringes from the volume. He brings his hand up, mimicking turning a dial down and Peter seems to get the message as he lowers his voice. “You've constantly got either the same grades or higher than me. Plus, MJ and Ned aren't on full scholarships like we are.” Peter blushed slightly with the end of his sentence.

Tony rolled his eyes at the two teens. He put his hands up, standing between the two teens. “As entertaining as this ‘argument' is, I’m gonna have to end it. Now, I believe you kids have a project to be getting on with. If you guys knuckle down for a few hours, I'll order some pizza later and Ashley can stay for movie night, if her family is okay with it.”

Ashley visibly froze when Tony mentioned her family. She couldn’t exactly tell him that she could be dead for all her family cared. She shook her head, declining Tony's offer. “Th-thank you Mr Stark, but I don’t want to outstay my welcome.”

With that, Ashley moved to sit on one of the bean bags, shrugging her tattered rucksack off her shoulder. She pulled out the school laptop she had borrowed (with permission of course) and turned it on to load up their project. Peter shrugged his shoulders, disappearing quickly to the lab to pick up his own laptop (courtesy of Mr Stark) before sitting down on a bean bag next to Ashley.

The pair worked together in relative quiet, only briefly discussing ideas or brainstorming how to fix any bugs. Three hours passed by without them getting up from their seats, and by the time they stopped, the sky had been dark for some time. Neither teen had noticed that there were more people in the room than when they first got there, sprawled out across the sofas in the middle of the room in front of the large TV.

“I think we just need to do a couple of test runs and smooth out any remaining bugs next week,” Peter commented as he turned off his laptop. Ashley hummed and nodded as she packed her laptop back inside her backpack. When she sat up again, she then noticed the three extra heads that had joined Tony on the sofas.

Cuddled up beside Tony was a woman with burning orange hair, which could only belong to Pepper Potts (although it was rumoured she would soon become Pepper Stark). She was watching the two teens with a small smile on her face, along with another red head. The other woman had more fiery hair and her gaze was fixed on Ashley with a calculating stare. The man that was with them was sat a few meters away from Tony and they were having an animated conversation about suit mechanics, and not paying the teens any mind. He was dressed in fairly plain jeans and hoodie, compared to Pepper's business suit and Natasha's tailored dress. But Ashley's gaze fixed on him for a long minute, staring at the braces on his legs. Everyone knew that James Rhodes, or War Machine, had been injured in Berlin on ‘Avengers business', but she hadn't realised it was to the point where the man could no longer fully use his legs.

Ashley's gaze was drawn back to Pepper when she stood up, five-inch heels clicking on the wooden floor as she walked over to them. Reflexively, Ashley stood up, just as Pepper came to a stop a couple of feet away from her. “You guys have been working hard over here, haven't you? You didn't even notice when we came in.”

Peter didn’t miss the slight stumble as Ashley hurried to stand up to greet Pepper. He instinctively moved closer to his friend, worried she might fall over. Ashley introduced herself to the CEO, stammering over her words as she spoke. “H-hello Miss P-Potts, it’s a pl-pl-pleasure to m-meet you.”

Pepper chuckled lightly, finding the girl in front of her quite endearing. Being surrounded by outgoing and outlandish personalities all day made this a nice change of pace for her. “It’s lovely to meet you too. Ashley, wasn’t it?” Ashley nodded her head, finding her throat closing up as she stared at the amazing woman in front of her. “You two must be starving after all that hard work. Why don’t you both go sit down? Pizza will be here soon.”

Peter was absolutely thrilled to hear that food would be arriving soon. He was starving and couldn’t wait for a slice or twelve. His glance fell sideways, and he noticed Ashley looked rather nauseous in comparison. Her face was pale with a slight green hue. If it weren’t for his enhanced senses, he might not have noticed the thin sheen of sweat on her forehead. Peter was about ready to drag her across to one of the sofas when Ashley spoke up, her voice barely more than a whisper, reciting the words she had said to Mr Stark earlier.

“I should get going – I don’t want to outstay my welcome.”

A small frown crossed Pepper’s features, and Ashley wondered for a minute if she had accidentally offended her. But truth be told, she just felt so tired and wanted her sleeping bag.

“Nonsense!” Pepper’s voice was commanding, but it still had that soft lilt to it. It reminded Peter of how May used to scold him if he didn’t eat enough. When Peter first got his powers, he felt guilty about needing to eat so much food in order to keep up with his metabolism. But when May found him swaying on his feet after patrol one night, she made it her mission to force feed Peter if necessary. “You’re not outstaying your welcome and there will be more than enough pizza to go around. Some of our friends are busy, so there’s only a few of us tonight. As long as your parents are okay with it, you can stay for as long as you want. We’ll make sure you get home safe.”

There was a conflicted glance in Ashley’s eyes. Her eyes seemed to be searching Pepper’s, possibly looking for confirmation to her words. As if sensing this, Pepper grasped the girl’s hand and led her over to the sofa, Peter following the pair closely behind. Ashley sat down hesitantly next to Pepper, who resumed her seat tucked into Tony’s side. Peter sat on the adjoining sofa on Ashley’s other side and greeted Natasha with a brief hug.

There was an awkward pause that lasted about thirty seconds, where nobody really knew what to say. Rhodey decided he would be the one to break the silence. “So, is there anyone else joining us tonight? I assume there’s no Thor.”

Tony cleared his throat and smiled, clearly glad for the small talk. “Yeah, Thor’s off-world. Barton is farming, like a peasant; Cap is off gallivanting with Bird-man and the Manchurian Candidate; and Banner’s probably holed up in his lab somewhere. Wanda and Vision should be joining us though.”

Ashley let out a slight giggle at Tony’s blasé description of the Avengers. The sound came out breathy and strained, but Tony smirked slightly at the reaction he got. He could tell Peter’s friend was nervous to be around them, but Tony didn’t think it had much to do with them being the greatest assembly of superheroes (or at least that’s what he thought). She reminded him so much of Peter. The girl was clearly intelligent – he had listened to her and Peter working, and her gifts were clearly in the realm of technology and coding. He could maybe use another intern…

A ‘ding’ sound brought everyone’s attention to the elevator at the other end of the room, where Vision and Wanda were stepping out. Wanda’s hand was tightly encased in Vision’s as they walked out to meet the group. Wanda’s hair was hanging in loose, chestnut waves past her shoulders. She wore a pair of ripped black skinny jeans and an oversized burgundy sweater. Vision was wearing a pair of grey slacks and he had a white shirt on underneath the olive jumper he was wearing. They would look like a fairly normal couple if it wasn’t for the crimson hue that was Vision’s skin and the glowing yellow stone in the centre of his forehead. Both of them stopped in their tracks once they realised that not only was everyone looking at them, but there was a pair of unfamiliar eyes staring at them both.

“Who is this?” The slight undertone of Wanda’s Sokovian accent caused her question to come out more intimidating than she had meant. She was starting to sound more like a native to New York as the days went by, but she hadn’t lost the accent of her homeland completely, and she vowed that she wouldn’t, in order to remember her brother, if nothing else.

Peter jumped up from his seat and rushed over to meet Wanda and Vision, embracing them both in a strong hug. He then bounced back over to the sofas, clearly demonstrating that he had far too much energy. “Hi guys, this is my friend Ashley.”

Ashley stood up to greet the two Avengers, not wanting to be rude. In a quiet murmur, she spoke: “H-Hello, it’s nice to meet you.”

Wanda seemed to pause in thought for a second, before she broke out into a wide smile. She stepped forward and embraced the stammering girl before her in a quick hug, not missing Tony’s warning glance as she did so. She knew she was being warned not to go sneaking inside the girl’s head, and she had learnt her lesson from doing that very quickly. There was something about the girl that drew her in though, and Wanda felt oddly comforted by the brief contact.

As Wanda stepped back, Vision spoke up beside her. “It is a pleasure to meet you Miss Ashley. I am Vision and this is Wanda. Although, you may know her as Scarlet Witch.”

Ashley sat back down, feeling a little dizzy from the crazy event that she had found herself in. Her heart was hammering in her chest as she watched Wanda and Vision move to sit next to Rhodey on another sofa. She was just starting to calm down when a familiar loud voice echoed overhead.

“Pizza’s here, Boss.”

“Thanks FRIDAY,” Tony shot back as he got up and walked over to the elevator to go and meet the delivery boy that was waiting in the foyer downstairs.

Ashley rolled her eyes as she realised that agreeing to stay for the evening might just end up giving her a heart attack. As they waited for Tony to return with food, she couldn’t even begin to imagine what the rest of the night had in store…


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pepper and the Avengers get to know their guest a little more and Ashley and a friend are introduced to a new threat in New York City.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, I've start publishing this fic, I've already got about 20 chapters written, so I'm aiming to post a chapter a week. But if there is something you want to see, please leave some feedback in the comments. I'm toying with the idea of maybe introducing Harley Keener as a potential love interest later on for Ashley, but would love to hear your thoughts!

Tony returned around ten minutes later, balancing a dozen pizzas in his grasp. The boxes stacked so high that he couldn’t see where he was going, so Peter jumped up and took over half the pile from his mentor. The pizzas were laid out on the large glass coffee table in front of the sofas. Ashley watched as the others scrambled to get slices of their favourite pizza. Peter had picked up a whole box of ‘Meat Feast’ pizza and Tony had picked up a box of pepperoni pizza, which he shared with Pepper. Wanda and Vision had picked up a Hawaiian pizza, much to Tony’s dismay, if the scrunched-up expression was anything to go by. Natasha and Rhodey on the other hand had torn off the tops of boxes to create make-shift plates and had picked up a couple of different slices. Ashley looked at the mountain of pizza that was still on the table and her stomach flipped painfully, growling loudly in protest.

Natasha quirked an eyebrow and motioned to the mass of pizza in front of them that was still untouched. “Feel free to help yourself,” she commented, before taking a large bite.

With the red-head’s words, Ashley found herself reaching for a slice of chicken, sweetcorn and mushroom topped pizza. It had been a while since she had eaten anything much more than a couple of pieces of fruit, so she nibbled at the pizza gingerly. She savoured the taste, knowing it would probably be a while before she could eat anything this good again. Hopefully, once exams were over, she would be able to get a small job somewhere so that she could get a little food. But if she didn’t pass her exams, there would be no way she would be able to pursue a career in coding and programming like she had planned. And without a stable career, she may end up living in the tent forever…

By the time she had eaten the slice and just had the crust left, Peter had finished his whole pizza and Tony and Pepper were arguing over the last slice on their shared pizza. Pepper argued that she should have it as she had had a long day attending meetings that Tony couldn’t be bothered to go to. Tony argued that as the best Avenger, the final slice automatically falls to him… It didn’t matter to either of them that there were still three whole pizzas and a collection of random slices littering the coffee table still.

Ashley’s eyes widened as she watched Peter reach across the table and pick up a second box of pizza; this time a chicken and bacon one. Natasha on the other hand had discarded her cardboard ‘plate’ in favour of picking up the TV remote and scrolling through for a film for them all to watch. Apparently, it was Natasha’s turn to pick seeing as Sam wasn’t there. The red-head settled on a comedy movie – Scary Movie 4.

After about half an hour, nobody was really paying too much attention to the film anymore. So instead, the Avengers (and Pepper) decided to find a little more out about their guest.

“So, Ashley,” Pepper started. Her voice was quiet, in case some were still trying to watch the film, although everyone except Peter had turned towards Ashley and Pepper. “How did you and Peter meet?”

Ashley flushed slightly, her shoulders hunching up at the sudden influx of attention on her. “Umm, my friend MJ introduced us…”

“You’re friends with Scary Spice?” Tony asked, eyebrows raised.

“Sc-Scary Spice?” Peter spluttered, choking slightly on a twelfth slice of pizza. “Mr Stark, you call my girlfriend Scary Spice?”

Tony just shrugged his shoulders, eyes turning back to Ashley as he waited for an answer. “Yeah, I’ve been friends with MJ since I was about eight… She’s not that scary, you know. She’s just not afraid to tell you what she thinks.” _‘I wish I could be like that’_ she thought.

“Are you considering university when you’ve finished school?” Tony asked next.

“I’d like to…” Ashley spoke her thoughts aloud. “I just don’t know if I’ll be able to.” Tony waited for her to elaborate further, but he was met with a stony silence.

“Have you got your eyes on any particular universities?” This time it was Rhodey asking.

Ashley thought for a moment before answering honestly. “I’d love to go to MIT, but I might end up at NYU, which would be okay too.” Both Rhodey and Tony grinned at the mention of MIT. They cast their minds back to their student days, when life was much simpler and they didn’t face a global threat every other Thursday.

After that, the conversation died down and focus resumed back to the film playing on the TV. However, Ashley began to feel the day catching up with her. She felt an unshakeable tiredness settle in her bones and her eyelids suddenly felt weighted. She fought so hard against the feeling, eyes flying open wide every few seconds before ultimately losing the battle.

***

Pepper turned her head to the side about to ask the two teens if they enjoyed the film when the end credits started rolling, but her gaze fell on a sound-asleep Ashley. She was leaning against the arm of the sofa, arms wrapped around her middle. Pepper nudged Tony in the gut, which earned her a low whine, before nodding her head in the girl’s direction. Natasha and Tony both smirked at the scene, while Wanda, Vision and Rhodey joined Pepper with fond looks.

“She looked exhausted this whole time,” Rhodey commented, voice just above a whisper.

Peter had a small frown on his face. “She spends so much time studying.” He didn’t seem to be speaking to anyone in particular. His super senses could pick up a slight uptick in her breathing every now and then. It reminded him of how his Aunt May sounded when she picked up a bad case of the flu a few months ago. “MJ has been worried about her – we thought maybe Ash was avoiding us ‘cause we started dating... She stopped eating lunch with us and she doesn’t hang out with us at weekends like she used to.”

Wanda stood up and wandered across to a closet tucked away in the corner of the room. She pulled out a few blankets, placing them on the floor between Tony and Rhodey's feet, except for a pale pink one that she draped over the sleeping girl. Her touch lingered for a moment, eyes flashing a bright red, which the others didn’t miss. Before anyone could challenge her, she spoke with a calm voice.

“She's dreaming...” Wanda's eyes fixed onto the floor as she returned to sit next to Vision. “She’s sitting down on a sofa and there’s two old people with her. She’s reading them a story. I think they're her grandparents.”

Peter looked down solemnly at that. “They died last year. MJ said she was really close with them.”

“Wanda, you really shouldn’t be poking around in people’s heads,” Tony admonished. His gaze was firm as he fixed on the young woman.

Wanda met his gaze as she spoke up again. “I couldn’t help it. As I got closer, it felt like I was being drawn into her mind. Before I used my power, I could feel her – her pain, her anxiety and also happiness. There is something very strange about her.”

The room pondered silently at her words. After a minute, Tony stood up from his seat and moved to the kitchen counter to turn on the coffee machine. As it was brewing, he picked up a Stark tablet and addressed Peter. “Kid, what's your friend's full name?”

Peter shot his mentor a confused look, his brows creasing as he wondered what Tony was up to, but he complied with the request regardless. “It's Ashley Sampson.”

“FRIDAY, give me everything you can dig up on Ashley Sampson.” Within a minute, Tony was scrolling through his tablet at school administration documents and newspaper articles. “Genius child secures STEM school scholarship... Thirteen-year-old from Queens wins state poetry competition... Ah, what's this?” Tony had paused on a Government file that he should in no way have access to. It was an adoption certificate accompanied with a birth certificate. “Pete, did you know she was adopted?” Peter shook his head as Tony kept reading. “Ashley Evangeline Carter - adopted by Frank and Eleanor Sampson when she was two after her parents died in a car cra-” Tony stopped dead in his tracks. “Wow, here’s the kicker. Her birth parents were Daniel and Lily Carter. They were former SHIELD agents. Not only that, Daniel Carter is the grandson of Peggy Carter.”

Rhodey and Natasha shared a knowing look. “I remember reading a load of Fury’s old case files…” Natasha started. “Daniel and Lily were some of the best agents back then. But when they got married, they hung up the towel to start a family. I think Lily was already pregnant when they tide the knot.”

“I worked on a few cross operations with Daniel,” Rhodey remarked, casting his mind back. “I remember there was a major case of military corruption that SHIELD got involved in. It couldn’t have been long before he quit… He was a good man.”

“It’s a small world,” Pepper commented quietly as she watched the girl beside her sleeping through a conversation that she really should have been privy to. She reached out to tuck a loose strand of almost black hair behind Ashley’s ear, but stopped as soon as the pads of her fingers touched the dry, matted locks. Pepper frowned and drew her hand back, while the conversation continued around her.

“Do you think she knows?” Natasha asked.

Peter shook his head at that. “I didn’t even know she was adopted. I bet she doesn’t even remember her birth parents…”

Peter’s words were true. Ashley was incredibly young when she lost her parents and she couldn’t remember the slightest detail like the colour of their eyes or their hair. But more often than not she found herself wishing that she could remember something about them. She wished for a memory to hold onto of something better. Because if the accident hadn’t happened, then maybe her life would have been better… It was certainly easier to think about than if her birth parents were just as bad or perhaps possibly worse than her adoptive ones.

Tony came to sit back down next to Pepper and selected another film to put on the TV. It was some kind of dull action film that nobody was really paying attention to. Tony was messing around with suit designs on his tablet, Natasha was discussing schoolwork with Peter, Rhodey was planning recipes with Wanda and Vision, and Pepper was answering emails on her phone. The film was about thirty minutes in when Ashley started to stir.

It started with a small whine, but she soon began to shuffle under the blanket, movements becoming more frantic as she fought to untangle herself from it. Sensing the increasing panic as Ashley woke up, Peter helped remove the blanket, tossing it onto the floor as Ashley blinked her eyes open, taking a few seconds to adjust to the bright ceiling lights.

“FRIDAY, lights 40% please.” Tony’s command was so soft that Peter thought he was the only one who heard it. The lights dimmed as Ashley sat up, a dark blush tinting her cheeks.

“I can’t believe I fell asleep…” she mumbled to herself.

There was a small chuckle from Pepper beside her. “It’s okay, sweetie. You looked like you needed the rest.”

Peter heard a sharp intake of breath from his friend, who was staring at Pepper, wide emerald eyes glassy. Ashley hadn’t been called any affectionate pet names since her nana and granddad had passed. Pepper’s soft voice washed over Ashley with a feeling of calm and safety, and she wanted to stay and indulge in this feeling a while longer. But she knew she couldn’t.

Ashley stood up slowly, although she had noticed the dizzy feeling she had earlier had now vanished. The slice of pizza she had must have been needed, as the stomach pains had significantly quietened as well. “I should go h-home…” she mumbled as she picked up her bag. “Th-Thank you for the pizza.”

“Hold on, short round.” Tony stood up and walked over to Ashley. “Do you have a phone?” Ashley nodded, her eyebrows knitting together at the odd question. Tony flexed his fingers in a ‘hand it over’ gesture. Ashley reluctantly pulled the phone out of her pocket and handed it over. Tony almost dropped it in surprise – it was an old (ancient, actually) flip phone with actual buttons to press and not a touch screen in site. Tony started fiddling with the buttons on the phone and after a minute, his ringtone ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’ started playing over FRIDAY’s speakers. “Save that number please FRIDAY.”

“Certainly, boss.”

Tony handed the phone back over. “You’ve got my number now… In case of emergencies. And I can get hold of you, so maybe you and Peter can come over for study and movies regularly now.” Ashley stared after him, gobsmacked, as he returned nonchalantly to his seat. “Oh, Happy will be waiting with the car downstairs for you.”

“Why don’t I walk you down?” Pepper stood up, heels once again clicking on the wooden floor as she led Ashley over to the elevator.

As soon as the pair disappeared, Peter thought he was going to explode. “What was that?” Peter mustered up the strongest glare he could, but Tony still found Peter to be an adorable puppy.

“She’s a smart kid. I figured I could use another intern. Plus, there’s something… off about her. And you know what they say, keep your friends close and potential enemies closer.”

***

Ashley fidgeted nervously as she stood next to Pepper in the elevator. Her phone now sat like a heavy weight against her leg as she tried not to think about the last few hours spent in the penthouse. She could feel Pepper’s scrutinising eyes on her as she tried to dig an invisible speck of dirt from underneath her fingernail.

“I hope Tony didn’t scare you off too much.” Pepper decided to break the awkward silence that had fallen over them. “He can be a little intimidating when you first meet him. But we would love for you to come back.”

“Why?” As soon as Ashley realised she had asked that, she clamped her hands over her mouth. She hoped her voice had been soft enough that Pepper didn’t hear it. When Pepper turned towards her, she knew she had no such luck.

Pepper watched as Ashley took a step back and her shoulders hunched. The young girl’s stance was guarded and that was something that just didn’t sit right with Pepper. “You’re a polite and incredibly smart young girl. Peter’s other friends sometimes hang out with him at the tower, so I’m sure Peter would love it if you joined in.” Pepper bent her knees, trying to level herself a bit more with Ashley. “And I’m sure Tony wouldn’t be averse to you getting some experience at Stark Industries as an intern.”

The elevator doors opened, signalling they had arrived at the garage. Ashley paused before stepping out, turning to Pepper and offering her a small smile. “Thank you, Miss Potts. I hope I’ll see you again soon.” Ashley was surprised to find that she genuinely meant the words. She really did want to see Pepper and Tony again – and probably the others as well.

Ashley climbed into the back seat of the Audi and took one last look at Pepper, who was smiling brightly as Happy drove away. As the tower began to shrink behind them, her phone vibrated in her pocket with a new text.

**_Iron Man:_ ** _Movie night is every Friday night. I expect to see you after school next week._

Ashley chuckled lightly. As if he had named himself Iron Man in her phone. She looked up and met Happy’s gaze in the rear-view mirror.

“So, where we headed, kid?”

She hoped he couldn’t see her alarmed expression, knowing she couldn’t very well tell him she was living in a tent. “Oh, um, you can just drop me off by the school. I live nearby...” Which strictly speaking wasn’t a lie.

“Alright, kid.”

The rest of the ride continued in almost silence. Ashley watched the city pass by through the tinted window, where people were stepping out into the streets, dressed up to enjoy the city's nightlife. When Happy pulled up outside the school, Ashley thanked him and stepped out, pausing to wave him off. Once she was certain he was out of sight, she snuck onto the school field through a gap in the gate and took off towards the tree line. She was asleep that night as soon as her head hit the ground.

***

Ashley's weekend was mostly spent in the local library, studying. On Saturday morning, it was raining quite heavily when she woke up, so she stayed in the tent to make sure nothing was ruined in the downpour. A couple of hours later, the rain stopped, so she then made her way to the library. It was a two and a half mile walk across town to get there. She found a small corner where she camped out for the day with half a dozen books, and only left when the sun set. Saturday night was spent flying across New York, helping people and stopping petty crime.

Sunday was a very similar affair. She spent the day in the library studying, before returning ‘home' at dusk. She changed into her ‘patrol clothes' – she didn’t really have a better term for them – and quickly ate an apple that she had stored away for the weekend. Sunday nights were a little different to the rest of the week though. Normally, when she took to the skies, her wings carried her wherever she fancied, but Sunday had a routine.

As soon as the last traces of burning orange and dusty pink had faded from the sky to be replaced with a black velvet backdrop, she took off, heading towards the district of Hell's Kitchen. She settled on the roof of an apartment complex and waited. Closing her eyes, she tried to tune in her other senses to the world around her, just like _he_ had taught her.

The air shifted around her. There was a new smell in the air, it was a woody, earthy smell, which was out of place for this part of the city. And then she heard a small crunch of stones underneath a shoe, about four metres away. She waited a few more seconds, listening to the footsteps get closer, before she lunged, landing a low kick to the back of the person's knee.

“Ow,” a low voice groaned as he fell to his knees from the force of the kick. “Good job, kid.”

Ashley opened her eyes and grinned, extending a hand to help Daredevil up from the ground. “Hey, Murdock.”

“Hey, Sampson.”

Ashley cringed slightly at that name. Seeing as her parents had upped and left out of nowhere, she didn’t feel like part of the Sampson family anymore. In fact, she hadn’t felt like part of the family since her grandparents had died a year ago. “It’s Carter...” she mumbled softly. Matt silently waited for her to expand. “My birth name – it’s Ashley Carter.”

“Okay,” Matt nodded and moved to stand beside her. “Carter it is then. You ready to go?”

Ashley answered the affirmative and leapt into the sky, gliding lazily behind Daredevil as he navigated the rooftops. They headed straight for the docks, as Matt had overheard some goons were running a sex trafficking ring. There were around six men at the docks, all guarding a container where the sounds of screaming and fists thumping on metal could be heard. Matt concentrated on picking off the further most ones as quietly as possible, while Ashley focused her energy into the ones guarding the container door. There was an old, rusted, iron anchor on the floor nearby. With her powers she focused on the anchor, changing its shape to form an iron javelin. It felt like she could feel each atom move in order to fully transform the object into a weapon.

Ashley launched herself at the guards, expertly twirling the spear around her and taking out two of the three guards simultaneously. With the third guard, she used the weapon to land a high kick, using her wings to help propel her forward. She kicked the thug in the head, knocking him out instantly. She lowered herself to the ground and opened the container to let out the girls that had been kidnapped. Matt joined her a minute later, sporting a few new gashes.

The two continued for a few hours, stopping any crime they came across, including robberies and drug deals. They took a break on a rooftop, somewhere high up above the city, and Matt used the time to teach Ashley some more fighting techniques. The first time the two met, Matt had pleaded with her to go back home. He didn’t need to see her to know how young she was. But no matter what he said, she would not quit – she said using her abilities to help others gave her a purpose, and that purpose kept her grounded when times were difficult for her. She never did elaborate on those ‘hard times’, but Matt had guessed it referenced her home life. Seeing as he couldn’t convince her to quit, he hoped that he might be able to prepare her better and so they scheduled patrols together every Sunday night, and Matt taught her how to defend herself.

The pair had begun sparring when the sound of gunshots had pierced the air. One of the shots caught Ashley’s side as it zipped past and embedded itself in the feathery mass of her wing. She doubled over in agony, her powers taking total control for her. Her wings curled around her, providing a barrier that the bullets could not pass through and her powers reached out, pulling water tanks and chimneys on top of the masked assailants that had assaulted them. One of the assailants tried to sneak up the fire escape, coming up behind Matt, but he dodged as the masked man tried to knock him out with the butt of his handgun. In a flurry of quick movements, Matt had the thug disarmed and held up against the wall with one tight hand around his neck.

“Who are you?” he seethed, feeling the man’s windpipe crush beneath his fingers.

The man rasped out an answer as best as he could, legs desperately flailing to find ground to stand on. “We were… s-sent to… retrieve… the girl.”

“Who sent you?” Matt’s voice roared. The man did not respond, so he pressed his fingers tighter into the man’s neck, thumbnail digging into the skin deep enough to draw blood. “WHO DO YOU WORK FOR?”

“… Karito…”


	4. Chapter 4

Matt had managed to drag Ashley back to his apartment. Every other step the young girl had let out a pained whimper. Matt had known her get hurt before, and a few times she had sustained small stab wounds that were probably worse than the gash she was sporting on her left side now. But her breaths were laboured with agonising gasps, and he could taste the sweat running down her forehead in the air – a sign of an already climbing fever. Matt had a theory, but it was one he hoped was wrong.

He laid Ashley down on his couch. Her eyes were closed, and a crease marred her forehead as if she was trying to concentrate on something – possibly not passing out. Matt dug out a first aid kit that seemed to need stocking up far too regularly these days. He had managed to coax her out of her hoodie and so he pulled back the hem of her t-shirt, just enough to expose the wound, taking a sharp breath as he felt taut skin stretch over her ribs. He ran his fingers gently over the gash – it was about three centimetres long and about half as wide, so nothing too life-threatening. In fact, a couple of stitches should sort it out.

Ashley let out a loud groan, her whole body shaking with the pain she was in, drawing Matt’s attention back to his earlier theory that he needed to test. He started by asking her a fairly simple question. “Where does it hurt?” He expected her to say her side, as that was the obvious answer. But it wasn’t the answer he got.

“You… You w-wouldn’t believe me if I t-told you,” she rasped through clenched teeth.

“Your wings?” The question came out barely louder than a whisper. In answer, Ashley’s wings unfurled, her right wing curling defensively round her thin body. Her left wing however, hung limply at her side, the bottom of the feathered mass landing on the floor with a soft thump. Matt gently trailed his fingers over the delicate feathers, marvelling in how soft they felt. As he drew closer to the bullet still lodged in them, Ashley’s whines became louder. When the pad of his index finger brushed the bullet, she had to clamp a hand over her mouth tightly to muffle the scream that escaped her.

Matt quickly withdrew his fingers, as if he had been burnt. “Sorry, kid.” Removing that bullet was going to be difficult. Especially as he had no idea what to expect once it was out. Would she bleed out? Would the wound heal on its own? He had to risk it though because this _child_ was in agony. He turned back to his supply box and pulled out a container that he had labelled in braille – Codeine. He pulled out two pills from the box and walked over to the kitchenette, filling up a glass with water from the tap. When he came back to Ashley’s side, he pushed the glass of water and the pills into her hands. “Take those – it will help dull the pain.” Or at least that was what he hoped.

Ashley complied with his instructions and it didn’t take long for her to slump drowsily against the back of the sofa. She wasn’t whimpering with every other breath now, which Matt took as a good sign. He took out a pair of tweezers and with his free hand, he ran his fingers down the feathers, searching out the bullet again. The only sound Ashley made when Matt’s fingers came into contact with cold metal, was a quiet moan accompanied by her body twitching slightly. Matt pinched the bullet between the tweezers and slowly began to tease it out from the wound. Ashley’s breathing hitched at the movement and her hands clawed at the fabric of the sofa, trying to keep herself as still as possible.

After several agonising seconds, the bullet finally came free. Ashley gasped in relief, the pain subsiding as the damaged feathers fell out. Matt caught the handful of black feathers. These ones weren’t as soft, and they were sticky with blood. He hesitantly touched the featherless area, feeling a fragment of bone peeking through the hole.

“They’ll grow back…” Ashley’s voice was slow, words starting to slur as the night’s events and the painkillers in her system caught up with her. Matt turned his attention back to the gash in her side. She barely flinched when he started sewing up her side and by the time he had finished, she had passed out completely. Matt stayed for another hour to watch over her before sitting down to sleep himself. He slept in the armchair opposite just in case something happened during the night.

When Ashley woke up the following morning, Matt was already up making breakfast. The smell of sizzling bacon was enough to coax Ashley off the sofa. Her wings rustled as they tucked themselves away, out of sight. She could still feel a dull ache in her left wing, but it was nothing she couldn't handle. As she stood up, she swayed a little on the spot and had to grab the arm of the sofa to stop herself from falling over.

Matt heard the fabric of the sofa straining in Ashley’s tight grip and heard the way her feet shuffled unevenly on the floor. He quickly switched off the hob and hurried to her side, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and leading her back to sit down on the sofa. “Easy, kid... They did a number on you last night.”

Ashley whined softly as she slumped back against the sofa. “But I gotta... I gotta go to school.”

“Not happening. You're going to stay right there; we'll have breakfast and then you and I are going to talk.” Matt's voice was serious. He moved back to the kitchenette to dish up breakfast -bacon sandwiches – handing a plate to Ashley before he sat down with his own plate. By the time he had eaten the whole sandwich, Ashley was still gingerly nibbling at one corner. After the pizza on Friday night, Ashley's stomach was a little more accepting of food, but she still didn’t want to rush and cause herself to feel any worse than she already did. Matt waited patiently for her to finish eating, no matter how long it took. He had already decided he wouldn’t be going into the office today.

“Okay… So, what did you want to talk about?” Ashley asked, fingers fidgeting nervously in her lap. She shifted in her seat, trying to ease the ache that was settling in her back. With her wings receded, the pain from the bullet wound made itself known as a steadily growing burning sensation in her lower back. She tried to stifle a groan, but Matt’s hypersensitive hearing picked up on it. He walked over to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water and a bottle of beer. He passed the bottle of water to Ashley and nudged the painkillers on the table towards her before sitting down and cracking open his beer. Ashley cracked the pills out of their counterfoils and chugged them down with half a bottle of water. When she sighed in relief as the medication kicked in, Matt decided to start his questioning.

“I need you to tell me what’s going on. You show up more times than not breathless and giving off fever heat that I can feel from metres away. You’re tired and sometimes unfocused when we spar. Last night, you asked me to call you a different name, which seemed very out-of-the-blue, and while I was stitching you up, I could feel your ribcage jutting out from your skin. To top it all off, someone called Karito is after you and I’m not sure they plan on taking you alive.”

Ashley shifted uncomfortably, gaze dropping to her lap. Even though Matt was blind, it felt as though his eyes were boring into her skull. She wondered how much to tell him... She liked Matt and considered him a friend. He was probably the one of only three people she really trusted, but she had no idea how he would react if she told him her current living situation. She didn’t want to risk getting dumped in the system and potentially being forced to give up her education at Midtown, as that was her only chance if she wanted to pursue the career she wanted. “I don't know who Karito is,” she spoke honestly. “And I've been a bit sick lately, so I haven’t had much of an appetite.” This wasn’t a total lie – more of a vague truth.

“And the name thing?” Matt prompted.

“I'm adopted and I’m just trying to honour my birth parents.” She stated simply. Again, not a million miles from the truth.

“Okay, but why now?”

Ashley just shrugged before closing her eyes and sinking even further into the sofa. Matt sighed, sensing he wasn’t going to get anything else from Ashley, especially after her breathing evened out into the tell-tale signs of sleep. He picked up a blanket from his bedroom and draped it over her thin body and left her to rest. To pass the time he had Karen, the law firm’s secretary and sole employee (apart from the two owners) send over some emails for him to go through with his specially adapted laptop.

***

Peter, MJ and Ned had been very concerned when Ashley was a no-show at school that day. After the events of Friday evening, Peter had spent the weekend chatting with MJ and Ned in their group chat. Mostly he was buzzing with excitement over the prospect of Ashley becoming a second high-school intern for Mr Stark and how she had made an impression on some of the Avengers – most notably Scarlet Witch who he had also spent a good portion of the weekend texting. The young Avenger wanted to know when Peter would next bring his friend to the tower as it seemed she had become quite enamoured with her.

MJ had tried texting Ashley at lunch, seeing as she was the only one who had her phone number, but she didn’t receive a reply. MJ wasn’t one to wear her heart on her sleeve, and easily hid her emotions well, but even Ned could tell she was bothered by Ashley not showing up to school. Their friend’s face was fixed in a permanent worried expression, eyes unfocused and teeth gently biting her lower lip.

“Peter, did something happen on Friday?” she asked him as they sat through History class together.

Peter shook his head before casting his mind back to that evening. “Although, she did seem like she was sick. Before we had dinner, she was swaying on her feet a bit and then she fell asleep next to Miss Potts when the movie was on.” Peter thought about it a bit more, trying to remember every detail of that night. “She didn’t eat much either – just a slice of pizza.”

“I think there’s something wrong…” she mumbled; Peter wasn’t too sure she was still talking to him, or if he was even supposed to hear that.

MJ spent the rest of the day periodically checking her phone for a reply text from Ashley. By the end of the day, she still hadn’t had a response. Peter was starting to get concerned as well, mostly because MJ was so agitated. He invited MJ and Ned back to his place to study after school, hoping that he could distract his girlfriend from the meltdown she looked like she was about to have. The three of them had stretched out across Peter’s living room floor and were pouring over their maths homework to varying degrees of success (from Ned, who was already nearly finished all twenty problems they had been assigned, to MJ, who had made a few rough workings out on the first problem and then just doodled absently on the page). May had just thrown away the dinner she had been burning and ordered some take-out when MJ’s phone buzzed.

**_Ash:_ ** _I took a sick day today – must have eaten something dodgy over the weekend. Sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. 17:21pm_

MJ sighed in relief, reading the text a few times over. She showed the phone to Ned and Peter, who both grinned. She fired a quick text back at her best friend.

_Glad ur ok. Need me to come over with some snacks? 17:22pm_

A few minutes later, MJ received an answer.

**_Ashley:_ ** _No need. I’ll be at school tomorrow. 17:27pm_

MJ wasn’t surprised by the response. She knew Ashley’s parents wouldn’t be happy if she turned up at their front door. They were cruel people who didn’t care about her at all. MJ thought back to their time in middle school – she used to beg her mother to let Ashley stay for sleep overs at least once a week. (Sometimes more often on the rare occasion that Ashley’s mother actually got violent.) Ashley spent many nights crying to MJ about how she wanted to go to the same school as her friend. She worked herself into the ground with studying so that she would get the full scholarship to Midtown, because her parents would never agree to pay the tuition fee.

But just lately, there were no more sleepovers. No time spent with MJ and her mum, doting over her best friend and spoiling her rotten with treats. At first, she wondered if it was because MJ had started dating Peter. Did Ashley have a crush on the boy? The more MJ thought about it, the more absurd it sounded. Ashley had actively pushed MJ to talk to Peter in the first place. Sure enough, Ashley and Peter had both been academic rivals at first, but they were both far too wholesome to actually resent the other. That was how they became friends after all, and MJ was confident she would know if Ashley had feelings for Peter. Honestly, once she got to know Peter more, she was convinced he was just the male version of her best friend and the two could easily pass for siblings.

So that left one other option… Something had happened at home. MJ wanted to do something for Ashley for years when they were growing up together, but her best friend had always assured her she was alright. She had a roof over her head, clothes on her back (although usually a little worn and sometimes too small), and most of the time, three meals a day. But MJ also knew that Ashley was the one cooking all of those meals for the whole family and she was the one keeping the apartment clean on a daily basis. Any spare time Ashley had after her chores were finished, she had dedicated to studying. That was when she wasn’t being punished of course…

Ashley had been adopted at the age of two by Frank and Eleanor after they struggled to conceive. They had two years together where the two treated her like a little princess. She was the apple of their eyes until Eleanor fell pregnant not long before Ashley’s fifth birthday. At first, nothing really changed, and Ashley was excited over the prospect of a little brother as her parents were. MJ isn’t exactly sure when or why things changed – she could only piece bits of the story together from things her friend had let slip. But sometime during the pregnancy, Eleanor became cold towards her daughter and started pushing her around and ordering her to do things. By the time little Lucas was born, there were no more ‘I love yous’ or cuddles for Ashley. Eleanor threw insults at her and bossed her around, whereas Frank just completely ignored her.

Any yet the one thing that still astounds MJ to this day, was how much Ashley loved that little boy. She would do anything to protect Lucas. Any other child would have been jealous, but not Ashley. She would sneak into the baby’s room at night and curl up on the floor with a blanket, watching over him. To begin with, Ashley was terrified that her parents might do something to hurt him. But she soon realised they loved Lucas so much, just like she did. As long as Lucas was safe, Ashley would do whatever her parents asked her.

MJ was broken out of her reverie when the take-out was delivered. It was from that Thai place down the road that Peter and his aunt adored. The two of them had gone to dish up the food, while she and Ned cleared away their books. Ned was eyeing her wearily as MJ packed her bag. “What?” she asked, eyes narrowed at Ned.

“You’ve been zoning out for the past twenty minutes…” Ned stated, voice getting quieter as MJ’s glare seemed to intensify.

“And?”

Ned debated for a whole second how to respond. Does he call MJ out on it? “Nothing.” Nope… That’s a battle for another day. He knows MJ is worried about Ashley. Heck, they all were. Ned wasn’t as close with her as Peter and certainly not as close as MJ, but he could still tell something had changed. Ned and Ashley enjoyed bouncing ideas off each other for IT assignments they had, and Ashley often lent a fresh pair of eyes on some of his coding projects he did in his spare time. She didn’t have the same passion for Star Wars or Lego as he and Peter did, but she didn’t dismiss it in the same way MJ did either. In fact, on the rare occasion that she did hang out with them on the weekend, she would happily assist in whatever Lego project the boys were working on, while MJ sat in a corner with her sketchpad.

There were a couple of times when Ned had brought up the ‘FOS’ or ‘Friends of Spider-Man’. He thought that Ashley should be in on Peter’s little secret, especially seeing as Peter was so bad at keeping it. There had been a few instances over the last few months where Ashley had caught the three of them exchanging quiet whispers with each other. He felt guilty, knowing what it felt like to be excluded, and it’s even worse when it’s by people you thought were your friends. His theory was that was the reason she was now so distant. So, he decided to bring it up again over dinner.

“I think we should tell Ashley that Peter is Spider-Man.”

Peter briefly choked on some of his noodles. May just shook her head at her nephew and fetched him a glass of water once he had recovered. “Ned! You can’t just come out with things like that!” Peter lightly scolded his best friend.

“I agree with Ned,” MJ piped up, not taking her eyes off her food.

A pinched expression took over Peter’s face. “Yeah, you’re probably right… Just let me handle it.”

The three of them helped May clear up from dinner before Ned and MJ went home and Peter donned his suit and went out for a short patrol, promising May to be back before ten-thirty. Peter stopped a few petty muggers and returned a lost cat to Mrs Espinosa who lived across the street. The cat had somehow made it to the roof of a neighbouring, ten-storey block of flats.

He had just grabbed a sandwich from Delmar’s and found a roof to perch on to eat when a familiar pair of black wings flew overhead. Placing his sandwich back in the bag, he decided to take off after her, swinging West towards Brooklyn. After around ten minutes, she landed on a rooftop on the edge of Queens. She turned to face Peter as he landed behind her, face obscured by her scarf and her hood. But her expression was furious, brows furrowed as she glared at him.

“Why are you following me?” She spit the words out, trying to convey as much annoyance as possible in her tone.

“Hey! I just wanted to chat. I thought we could work together you know, kind of like the Avengers.” Peter couldn’t have hidden the excitement in his voice if he tried. “We did an awesome job with that bank robbery the other day.”

“I had that handled on my own, thank you.” Again, she tried to make her glare and her words venomous, but Peter just wasn’t intimidated by it. If anything, he was intrigued. Her eyes were so familiar – emerald orbs with flecks of yellow surrounding the iris like petals on a sunflower.

“At least give me your name. You know who I am after all,” Peter begged.

The girl rolled her eyes, the cold glare slowly starting to melt. “I don’t have a name… And I’m not a superhero or some vigilante either,” she added. “I’m just…” She trailed off, not quite knowing how to finish her sentence. So, Peter finished it for her.

“Looking out for the little guy, right?” The girl nodded and Peter grinned (not that she could see that behind his mask). “That’s what I’m doing too.”

“Is that before or after fighting Captain America and the other Avengers in Germany?”

Peter’s face fell slightly. “Th-That was a misunderstanding…” The girl simply cocked an eyebrow at him questioningly. Before Peter could elaborate further though, his attention was grabbed by the sound of sirens far off in the distance. His sensitive ears picked up on some police radio chatter down on the streets.

“Pursuit in progress – gun shots heard at a club in Long Island, suspect attempting to get away in a silver Mercedes – licence plate…”

Peter took off in the direction of the sirens, scanning the streets below for signs of the silver Merc. It didn’t take him long to find the source of the commotion, dangerously tearing through the busy streets. Peter balanced himself on a lamp post in order to get his bearings and try to figure a way to stop the car safely. As he started to formulate a plan, the same black wings flew overhead, heading straight for the speeding car. As she flew past, she called out to Peter.

“Come on Spidey, I could use your help.”


	5. Chapter 5

Ashley relished in the feeling as she soared high over the skies that evening. She had spent most of her afternoon asleep on Matt’s surprisingly comfy couch. After a long nap, she had felt much better than she had in days, and Matt had also forced her to take a shower before she headed on her way. Matt was a good friend to her, offering her a place to stay whenever she needed for however long she needed. There was a part of her that was so very tempted to take him up on the offer on a more permanent basis, but she didn’t want to burden him. And although she had accepted another sandwich from him before she left, she couldn’t pay him for feeding her all the time.

Despite the small wound in her side, that was currently stitched up and bandaged, this was the best she had felt in the last few weeks. So, regardless of Matt’s warnings of rest, she took to the skies, stretching her wings out. The breeze was particularly chilling where the feathers had fallen out and were exposing the bone, but the bullet hole wasn’t causing any huge discomfort.

She decided to do a lap around the city before turning in for the night. She was still injured so she didn’t want to risk making it worse, but she really wanted the freedom that only flying high above the city gave her. As soon as she had entered the district of Queens though, she felt someone following her. One look behind her at a trail of sticky webs on buildings she had soared passed gave her a pretty good idea of who it was that was following her. He wasn’t exactly subtle…

She tried to shake him off, but the little Spider was fast. She didn’t have the energy to out-fly him, so she gave up landing on a rooftop nearby. She turned around to confront the vigilante, who had landed a few metres behind her, arms crossed over her chest. She was determined to do anything she could to get him to leave her alone.

“Why are you following me?” She tried to sound nasty, but even to her ears the tone fell a little flat. God, MJ was so much better at this.

Ashley mostly tuned out when Spider-Man started rambling. However, when he mentioned the bank robbery and the ‘awesome job they did together’, she bristled. She hadn’t asked for him to intervene and she certainly didn’t want to make it a regular thing.

“I had that handled on my own, thank you.” _Leave me alone,_ she begged internally.

“At least give me your name. You know who I am after all.” His voice cracked at the end, pleading with her. This guy couldn’t even pretend to be an adult if he tried…

“I don’t have a name…” She sure as hell wasn’t going to give him her real name. This kid was clearly still at school and possibly might even go to Midtown. Although, Ashley found that unlikely - this guy didn’t seem like the sharpest tool in the shed. “And I’m not a superhero or some vigilante either. I’m just…” _what?_ What was she? Someone looking to let off some steam and use the gifts she had to help others. They sure as hell hadn’t helped herself. She might be a freak, but she didn’t want to be a monster. She didn’t want to be the monster that had chased her family away.

“Looking out for the little guy, right?” Spider-Man had finished the sentence for her, and maybe he wasn’t so dumb. It was a description that seemed to fit her motives. Or at least the motives she had when she first started flying over the city. “That’s what I’m doing too.”

She had to hold in a snort at that. “Is that before or after fighting Captain America and the other Avengers in Germany?” Her question had come out snarkier than intended. Maybe she was finally picking up some things from MJ.

“Th-That was a misunderstanding…” Spider-Man’s voice had softened considerably, his head tilted down looking almost bashful. The sudden mood switch from the cocky, overconfident teen was rather left field from where Ashley was standing. She waited for him to continue, suspecting he had more to say, but was instead surprised when he suddenly took off from the roof, webs flying in all directions as he weaved through the tall buildings.

At first, Ashley was content to just leave it and retreat home. But then she heard the sirens. It sounded like half a dozen emergency service vehicles in the distance. She could leave it – Spidey probably had it covered. But his words echoed in her head. _Looking out for the little guy…_ There could be innocent people getting hurt and she could do something about it.

“Dammit,” she cursed softly before taking off again, wings stretching wide. She caught a flash of blue and red in the distance and fixed her sight on it, following the spandex superhero closely. It wasn’t until she caught a silver Mercedes being tailed by four police cars that she realised what was happening. Clearly the police wanted the driver and his reckless speeding around the crowded New York streets was easily going to get someone killed. She took off into a dive, getting closer to the ground when she passed Spidey and couldn’t resist making a quip.

“Come on Spidey, I could use your help.” The vigilante took off again, swinging close behind her. Ashley had an idea, but she needed to make sure she could protect the civilians. “Spidey, can you get everyone clear? I’m going to stop the car.”

Spidey nodded and took off towards the ground, yelling at everyone to clear out of the area. Ashley meanwhile sped off down the road before landing at an intersection, blocking any traffic from going further. What she was about to do required concentration, which was more focused if she wasn’t also flying. The Mercedes was speeding towards her now, less than half-a-mile away. She closed her eyes, letting her energy focus on the speeding car. As she visualised the inside of the car, purple tendrils reached out, flooding the area. She could see the people that were in immediate danger and could tell when Spider-Man had managed to move them out of harm’s way. With her energy, she applied pressure to the break in the car and it instantly started to slow down. The criminal panicked and turned the wheel, repeatedly pressing his foot on the gas, but Ashley concentrated harder forcing the car to slow, as safely as possible. The car swerved and forced her to dive to the side in order to avoid getting knocked by the bumper. The car finally came to a stop in the middle of the intersection and was immediately surrounded by police.

Spidey landed beside her and extended a hand to help her up. As she stood, she winced, clamping a hand over her left side. The lenses on Spider-Man’s mask expanded, in a rather comical shocked expression. “Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah… yeah I’m fine. Just pulled my side.” She waved him off, although she was fairly certain she could feel blood trickling down her side. Well that was just perfect… She’d torn her stitches.

“That was awesome what you did there! Whoa, we really do make a good team!” Spider-Man was clearly very ecstatic about what had happened. While Ashley was happy that they had stopped anyone getting hurt, she wanted nothing more than to get away.

“No. There’s no team – there’s no we. This was a one-time thing, Spidey.” Ashley became aware that people were starting to gather now, phones out taking videos and photos. “Your adoring fans are here. I think that’s my cue to leave.” Without any further comments from the vigilante, she took off high into the black sky where she could blend in and escaped back to Manhattan, landing by her tent.

She stripped off her clothes and packed them in her school bag, making a mental note to wash them in the gym’s changing rooms after school. She pulled back the gauze over her wound and sure enough there was a steady drip of blood underneath. A couple of the stitches had torn, but the gash hadn’t opened all the way. She sealed the gauze back over her side and practiced some of the meditation poses that Matt had taught her, which should help with healing.

***

Peter was very surprised when Tony was on the phone to him at eight o’clock on Tuesday morning. He was riding the subway to school when his phone buzzed, lighting up with Tony’s name.

 _“Hey Underoos, get up to anything exciting last night?”_ Tony’s voice carried a heavy tone of sarcasm.

“I went on patrol last night.” Peter’s voice was quiet, so as not to attract any unwanted attention.

_“Oh, I know. You’re all over the news this morning. So, are you going to introduce me to your new friend some time?”_

“Ah, about that…” Peter started. “I don’t think she likes me very much.”

Tony sighed deeply on the other end. _“There's a lot of people wanting to know who she is, myself included.”_ There was a long pause on the line. _“Just be careful please, kid. She might be dangerous.”_

“Of course Mr Stark, but I don't think she's dangerous.”

_“Just humour me, kid. You want to swing by for a lab-day after school tomorrow? You can bring Ashley as well if you want.”_

That put a huge grin on Peter's face. “Awesome, I can’t wait.”

Tony didn’t bother saying bye before he hung up the phone. Peter was feeling very happy as he met Ned by his locker that morning. He couldn't wait to tell his best friend all about the encounter the previous night.

“Dude!” Ned greeted him loudly just as Peter finished putting his books into his locker ready for the afternoon's classes. “You're all over the TV this morning – everyone is talking about it! Who was that?”

“Ned, keep your voice down,” Peter whispered. He kept his voice low as he recalled the previous night's events. “I don't know her name... She said she didn’t have one. I’m guessing that means like a superhero name, right? I saw her last week stop a bank robbery, which I helped with and then I saw her again last night and started following her, although she didn’t seem to like that very much, but she stopped and then...”

“Dude, take a breath.” Ned held up a hand to briefly silence Peter before he continued his ramblings.

“Yeah, thanks... and then I heard sirens and the police radio, a shooter was trying to get away from the police, so I went to help them catch the guy – turns out he didn’t actually hurt anyone, but he did steal a bunch of cash – and she followed me and told me to clear everyone out the way and then she just stopped the car! There were like these weird purple ropes coming out of her – like smoke and lightning – and she just forced the car to slow down.” By the end of his rant, Peter was a little short of breath. Ned was staring at him, eyes wide in awe as he took in Peter’s story. He had so many questions, but MJ had interrupted them before he could ask a single one.

“Hey losers.”

Peter nervously pecked MJ on the cheek, as despite weeks of dating, the pair weren’t quite sure how to act in public still. Ned grimaced lightly in disgust as they made their way to their first class of the day – Maths. When they got to the classroom, Ashley was already sat in her seat and looking like she was about to murder her desk partner, Flash Thompson. She was scowling at the boy who was taunting her for how ragged her school books were, the edges of the old text books frayed and the corners torn. As soon as MJ had entered the room, Flash was quick to shut up though, because even he knew better than to bully MJ’s best friend in front of her.

As MJ took a seat on the desk next to Ashley’s, she addressed her friend. “Hey, are you feeling better today?” Ashley simply nodded in reply, the teacher choosing that moment to step into the classroom.

MJ didn’t pay much attention in class at all that morning. At first, she sketched her stressed out Maths teacher, but even that was starting to lose its appeal. So, she searched for a new muse, her eyes landing on her best friend. It wasn’t exactly a sketch in ‘crisis’, but it was certainly going to be an emotive one. Her friend was hunched over in her seat, leaning slightly on her right side. MJ delicately sketched out the lines where her friend’s skin was stretched over her face and the near constant furrowing of her eyebrows that seemed to mar her complexion lately. She gently shaded the dark circles and the hooded eyes and the cracked, dry lips. The more MJ studied her, the more she wanted to cry, and it wasn’t long at all before a stray tear smudged her drawing.

Her best friend was wasting away in front of her eyes and MJ hadn’t done anything. She hadn’t even noticed until it had gone too far. After everything Ashley had done for MJ over the years, and she couldn’t even protect her in return. Ashley had been the first person in class to speak to MJ when she transferred to a new school and she had been the first to invite her to play. Ashley had been the first person not to call MJ weird, or call her a nasty name. In fact, she had been the first person to call her MJ and it had stuck ever since, but the name was only reserved for those deemed worthy.

The worst part was MJ knew things had escalated at home for Ashley the past two years. The first time Ashley had showed up at MJ’s front door for a sleepover with bruises, she knew. Even though she hadn’t said anything and in fact insisted one of the kids at school had tripped her up, MJ knew. MJ knew an adult had caused the purple rings that wrapped themselves around Ashley’s wrist and the dark, fist-shaped patches across her arms and legs. MJ knew that sometimes Ashley’s mother slapped her and pushed her around a bit, however this was completely new territory. But while Ashley stuck to her story, MJ felt powerless to help her.

Maybe, if she had spoken up, Ashley wouldn’t be sitting in their Maths class right now looking half-dead.

As the bell rang, MJ closed her sketchbook and quickly tucked it away in her bag. She followed Ashley, Peter and Ned out of the classroom to their lockers, glad that the four of them were so close together. She needed to do something, and maybe with Peter and Ned there too, MJ could find some courage to speak up. But the words died in her throat when Peter spoke first.

“Hey Ashley, how are you?” Peter asked, dispensing his Maths books into his locker in favour of the Biochem report that was due in that day.

“I’m okay, thanks.” Ashley’s voice was quiet as she switched out her Maths books for her Biochem books.

“Cool, um, so… Ashley?” Peter was stuttering over his words, which MJ would have found endearing if she weren’t so confused. What on Earth could Peter be trying to say?

Ashley closed her locker and turned to face Peter, who was starting to go red in the face. She quirked an eyebrow at him in a playful expression. “I already know. I got a text this morning.” Ashley pulled out her flip phone (all three of them were still surprised the decade-old relic got any service) and showed the text she had received that morning from none other than Tony Stark himself.

**_Iron Man:_ ** _Lab day tomorrow after school. Happy will pick you and Peter up. Stay for dinner._

MJ sniggered lightly, reading over the text a couple of times. Only Tony Stark could get away with ordering a couple of fifteen-year-olds around and somehow still sound endearing. MJ wondered how Ashley was going to run this one by her parents, when it had been a battle trying to get them to allow her to do Academic Decathlon practice after school. She still remembers the bruises and tired look in her friend's eyes when she came into school the day after she told them. MJ had expected her to say she wasn't going to be able to go, but Ashley's eyes lit up when she told her best friend that they would be joining the Academic Decathlon team together.

“So, are you going?” MJ asked hesitantly. It was a bit of a shock when Ashley simply nodded, a hint of a smile gracing her pallid features. There was no delay, no worried looks and no crestfallen expression. This somehow worried MJ more.


	6. Chapter 6

After a successful Academic Decathlon practice, Ashley went out again that evening. She stuck to Manhattan, wanting to avoid any arachnid-themed vigilantes if possible after the encounter the previous night. She had not been thrilled when she overheard classmates earlier that night discussing a new vigilante with ‘huge black wings' and ‘magic powers'. It didn’t help that all anyone could talk about all day were the rumours circulating online about her. The internet community had taken it upon themselves to name her, but no one could agree. Names such as ‘Black Phoenix', ‘Dark Angel' and ‘The Eagle' were thrown about by her classmates. The first two were downright cringe-worthy and the last one was a bit too patriotic for her liking. But one name stood out – this name was far less popular, but it was also less tacky, she felt.

‘Pegasus.’

After doing a tour of the island, she landed on one of the tall, luxury apartment buildings on the Upper East Side. It was a quiet night, so rather than focusing on finding things to do, she swung her feet over the edge and perched on the roof, over-looking the city below. The air was clearer and she found it easy to relax. For the first time in weeks, she let her guard down, shoulders sinking as a few stray tears escaped her.

She was well aware that the other kids at school had it a lot better growing up than she did. Especially MJ, whose mum was an absolute joy to be around. But despite the neglect, they were her family and she had loved them. That was something that MJ had never understood, when she had repeatedly asked her to report them to the police or CPS. But in the end, Ashley didn't need to get anyone else involved in order to push her family away. Instead, they had seen her for the freak – the monster – she really was.

Ashley had been twelve when her wings made their first appearance. She had been feeling awful the week leading up to it and had somehow managed to convince her parents to let her stay home (on the proviso that she still did all the chores before they got home from work). Luckily, it had happened while her parents were out. It began with a burning fire rising in her back that had her clawing at the bed sheets. She had curled tightly in on herself, small wails escaping as she wished away the pain. This went on for a few hours before the pain exploded, vision going white as the wings burst from her back. They were larger than her lithe frame and they curled around her protectively. She cautiously caressed the feathers, marvelling at how soft they were. Stroking the feathers helped her to ground herself. After all, a pair of huge black wings had just sprouted out of her back and she was fairly certain this wasn't normal.

The panic started up when she realised that she needed to get rid of them before her parents came home. She couldn’t cut them off – she didn’t want to. They were far too beautiful for that. She was feeling pretty exhausted from the pain and the fever by this point, but she put all of her focus into trying to see if she could force the wings back inside her. It was a long shot, but it worked. The wings retracted painfully, shrinking themselves down to fit inside her. It felt like a heavy weight on her spine.

The T-shirt she had been wearing was definitely ruined, so she quickly shrugged it off and hid it in the bottom of her wardrobe before putting on another one and crawling into her bed. Sleep had eluded her that night, as all she could think about were those wings. In time she learnt to accept them and spent many of her evenings sneaking out of her bedroom window and flying in the night, feeling free as she soared high above the city.

When she was thirteen, her powers made themselves known. She had stayed up later that night, making dinner for her family for the following day so that she could attend Decathlon Practice. She made three portions – as a consequence of attending Decathlon was that she wasn’t allowed a meal that evening. Everyone else was already tucked away in bed, so she couldn’t make any noise. She had a glass of water sat beside the stove while she was cooking a stir-fry. She had accidentally caught the glass with the handle of a pan that she was moving and the glass flew off the counter. Her panic started before the glass had touched the ground. She reached out instinctively to catch it and that was then the purple, smoky tendrils appeared. Her whole body was buzzing, as though there was an electrical undercurrent thrumming under her skin. The smoke appeared to spark with violet energy as it wrapped itself around the glass and brought it back up to rest on the worktop, still full.

She accidentally burnt the stir-fry that night, which earned her the following night locked in the cramped airing cupboard.

Over the next year and a half, she spent time in her room quietly trying to learn how her powers worked and how to control them. She had found out that she could turn a fork into a spoon purely by accident and so she experimented not only with moving objects with her powers but also turning objects into other things – displacing the molecules to create something new. For a while she managed to keep it all under wraps. But then a few weeks ago, it all went to shit.

Her younger brother, Lucas had gotten into a fight at school with another boy. Lucas had wanted to play netball with some of the kids in the class. The school’s netball team was comprised entirely of girls, but Lucas really enjoyed playing it. One of the boys in his class decided to make fun of him as netball is ‘a girl's sport’ and that apparently warranted him being called a ‘fag’. It was heart-breaking that he was being called names like that at the age of ten. The boy had started to push him around, so Lucas retaliated and pushed back. The other boy then took Lucas in a head-lock, which prompted him to bite the other boy to get him to let go. Lucas had been suspended from school for a week.

When he got home from school that afternoon, their parents were still at work, but they had already been called by the school. Ashley had got her brother some juice and gave him a long hug before starting to help him with his homework while the dinner was cooking in the oven. When their parents got home, Lucas told them what happened. They both cuddled him and kissed him on the head, telling him that if it happens again he should tell a teacher rather than fight back. They then sent him to his room to finish his homework and told him he couldn’t play on his Xbox this week as punishment. Once Lucas was in his room, they rounded on Ashley.

 _“This is all your fault, you stupid bitch!”_ her mother had shrieked. _“You've turned him into a sissy!”_

Not bothering to argue, Ashley simply apologised, but her mother was clearly in a very bad mood. She grabbed Ashley by her hair, the roots pulling from her scalp in her mother's grip. Ashley screamed and clawed at her mother's hand. Ashley found herself being dragged painfully across the floor before being thrown against the kitchen cupboards, her head hitting one of the metal door handles with considerable force. For a moment she didn't move, dazed from the blow. But when her mother grabbed her thin arms, nails scratching deep into her flesh, she lost control. The pain overtook her and with a loud scream, the windows in the apartment all shattered. There was a lavender fog surrounding her as the shattered pieces of glass moved around her, providing a protective barrier that had halted her mother from coming closer again.

Ashley will never forget their disgusted faces. They haunted her dreams every night since. Once the energy had dissipated, eyes returning to their dull olive rather than the vibrant purple they had been, her father had been quick to wrestle her into the cupboard, locking it shut and pushing a chair up against the door, despite her cries of _“Please dad! Daddy, don’t do this!”_

Her brother had let her out the following morning once their parents had gone out. She walked Lucas to school before heading to her own. That was the first day she didn’t speak to MJ, Peter or Ned. The next few nights were suffocating. Ashley got home from school and made dinner and then shut herself in her room, only to find her parents had binned the food she made and ordered in for the three of them. When Ashley came out of her room to use the bathroom, she cowered under her parents’ hate filled glares. She heard the mutterings of _‘freak'_ and _‘monster’_ under their breath and decided the following nights she would shut herself away in her room until morning.

On the fourth day she got home from school, already expecting Lucas to be home as she had stayed late to finish a project with another classmate – Betty if she recalled correctly. When she came home, there was a ‘for lease’ sign plastered to the front door, which had been left open. She swung the door open, and apart from a few empty food packets and the worn sofa, the apartment was bare. She wandered into her brother's room, searching him out, only to find it was completely empty. His Avengers figures were gone along with his clothes, books and the Harry Potter Lego sets he kept on a display shelf above the bed. His bed itself was absent of its' usual Hulk bed spread and the Captain America pyjamas that were usually folded on top of the pillow during the day.

She then wandered into her parents' bedroom, which again was bare. Her mother's jewellery box had disappeared and the large wardrobe was empty. The bed spreads had been stripped and the curtains had been taken down. Lastly, she entered her room, which was just as she had left it. Her clothes were still neatly organised in her wardrobe and the stuffed bear was still sat in the corner of her bed. It had been a gift from her nana and granddad and was decorated with a beautiful red and gold Chinese dress, as one of her favourite films she always watched with them was Mulan. The book she was reading was still open on page two hundred and thirty-seven – A Study of the Medical Applications of Gamma Radiation by Dr Bruce Banner. Another gift from her grandparents.

It was clear to see her parents had taken her brother and left, and it didn’t look favourable that they would come back. So she picked up an old worn duffel bag out of her wardrobe (which she usually used to pack a weekend bag to stay with her grandparents or with MJ). She packed her bear and her books first and then any remaining space was filled with whatever clothes she could fit, although she didn’t have many to begin with. She grabbed the stash of money she had hidden under a floorboard beneath her bed and raided the kitchen for any remaining snacks – she found a couple of packets of M&Ms and a half-eaten pack of rice cakes. She stashed them in her school bag and set off for the camping shop a few blocks away to gather some supplies...

Ashley wiped the last of her tears away when she felt a presence behind her. She already knew who it was by the familiar footsteps and the fact the person wasn’t even slightly concerned at her wings swept out behind her. Part of that was due to the person's blindness, but also by the fact that only a couple of night's ago, he had plucked a bullet from one of the wings.

“Good to hear my advice is being followed.” His tone was low and only held a small amount of snark. Earlier that day he had heard the news reports and he had been fuming to hear Ashley was all over the news. “Why aren't you with your new friend?”

“Not my friend...” she mumbled. She sniffed miserably, the cold air causing her nose to run.

Matt perched beside her on the roof, feet planted firmly on the ground and facing the opposite way to Ashley, whose feet were still dangling over the roof ledge. “I thought I told you to take it easy.” He reached out to her wing, running his hand gently over the feathers. At the motion, Ashley let out a soft whine, finding comfort in the action. Matt was mildly surprised when he could no longer feel bone jutting out from the soft feathers. “Wow, they did grow back fast...”

“I told you so...”

Matt sighed deeply. He could taste the salt tears in the air and could hear the quiet sniffles that Ashley was quite clearly trying to silence. “What are you doing up here?” He kept his voice light, despite how much he wanted to yell at the young girl. The last thing he wanted to do though was to upset her, especially as she was balanced so precariously on the ledge (regardless that her wings were out and would likely catch her before she could fall to a grisly death).

“Do you think I'm a monster?”

The question threw Matt for a loop. This smart and incredibly selfless kid thought she was a monster. Matt's theory was that someone must have told her she was a monster and it was probably a fairly recent thing. Matt had known her for nearly six months now, and though she had always been quiet and reserved, the past three weeks she had been constantly accompanied with an aura of despair. It hung over her like a rain cloud and she was soaked through to the bone. The pair would sometimes joke about between jobs and have a laugh together, but he hadn’t heard so much as a chuckle from her in weeks.

“No kid, I think you're amazing. You're kind and selfless and... special.” He reached up a hand to gently stroke through the black feathers, smiling slightly as he felt her relax into the touch. “Who told you you’re a monster?”

“No-one,” she muttered with a sigh. “It’s just something I think about a lot.”

“Well they’re wrong. And if they see you as a monster, then they don’t know the real you.”

Ashley drew in a stuttering breath. “Thanks.”

Although the gratitude was honest, Matt got the distinct impression that she didn’t believe his words. He felt she needed a distraction from whatever was going on in her head, so he tried to change the conversation. “So, you and the web-slinger, huh?”

“That was a mistake... A big, huge mistake. I shouldn’t have followed him.”

Matt stifled a chuckle. “Hey, you saved a bunch of people yesterday, or so I’m told. Apparently that guy could have easily run into a lot of innocent people. Nobody got hurt – you did a good job.” There was a brief pause. “So, have you chosen a name yet? I hear the internet has come up with some doozies.”

Ashley grimaced, emitting a noise of disgust. “There's not too many original thinkers out there sadly. But I think I found one... Pegasus sounds less tacky than the other ones.”

“Pegasus, hmm? I like it. It suits you – has an air of mystery about it.”

“Glad it meets your approval, Murdock.” The jibe had a light air of humour to it and Matt found himself chuckling. Ashley huffed and turned to look at Matt. She noticed then that he wasn’t dressed in his usual suit, but instead in a shirt, trousers, tie and a heavy-duty rain coat. His stick was resting idly in his right hand. “I should probably head off. Wanna get plenty of sleep before I see Mr Stark tomorrow.”

“Stark?” Matt questioned. His jaw tightened at the name. “Does he know?”

“No… Or at least I don’t think so. A friend of mine has an internship with him. He invited me to come with Peter tomorrow. I was hoping maybe I might impress him enough to at least get a recommendation from him for university applications.”

“I’m sure if anyone can impress Tony Stark it’s you. Please just promise me you’ll be careful.” Matt gripped onto Ashley’s arm tightly. Her breath hitched slightly at the touch, but she didn’t pull away. “Stark is a dangerous man. If he finds out who you are, you could get hurt.”

“I know.” Ashley said simply before sliding off the ledge, falling slightly before her wings kicked in. Matt waited until he could no longer hear the flap of her wings against the cool winter winds that were starting to roll in, before heading back home.

***

School passed by fairly quickly the following day. Ashley’s resolve was starting to crack, as she found herself willingly sitting with her friends at lunch time. MJ was quite glad that she didn’t need to do much cajoling that day. She picked up some fruit and sat at the table beside Ned with MJ and Peter opposite. The four of them were discussing their latest English Assignment – a comparative study into horror literature. They had been studying various works in class, including Dracula, The Call of Cthulhu and The Shining. MJ and Ashley were very excited for the topic and had enjoyed reading the novels, whereas Peter and Ned were trying to see what they could use to bribe the girls for help. So far, Peter had offered to pay for the next ten dates with MJ; and Ned was offering to sell his Lego sets and a kidney to pay Ashley for assistance. MJ had of course accepted Peter’s offer, whereas Ashley had made Ned a counter-offer of a favour in lieu, meaning she could come to him at some time in the future with a favour of her own that he cannot turn down.

At the end of the day, Ashley left her physics class with Peter and the pair of them walked out to the black Audi parked outside the front of the school. Happy greeted the pair with a few grumbles, before he pulled away, praying not to get caught in too much traffic. During the ride, Peter and Ashley began discussing their English assignments. The conversation was started by Peter, who could tell his friend was nervous about going to the tower again, if the lip biting and the way she scratched her arms was anything to go by.

“What books are you focusing on for your assignment, Ash?” Peter asked. MJ had clearly been rubbing off on him, as he was starting to use the same nicknames she would for her friend.

“I was probably going to focus on contextual factors in The Call of Cthulhu, The Shining and Battle Royale, but I’ve already thought about some counterpoints I could make with Macbeth and The Picture of Dorian Grey. I know MJ is planning her essay around the submission of the female character with Dracula and Carrie. Has MJ told you what she’s planning for _your_ essay?”

Peter snorted lightly. “No… She wants me to come up with the premise. She’ll just help me pick out my texts and proof read it for me.”

Ashley nodded in agreement. “That’s what I was going to do for Ned.”

Around twenty minutes later, Happy had pulled into the garage and the three of them piled into the elevator. Ashley had braced herself in preparation for FRIDAY’s loud voice to greet them upon arrival, but was shocked when instead, a series of zeroes and ones came over the speakers. “Why is FRIDAY speaking in binary?” Ashley asked, but was met with a confused look from Happy and a shrug of the shoulders from Peter.

When they arrived at the Penthouse, Tony was nowhere to be found. The whole floor was bathed in red light and at the kitchen counter, Pepper was massaging her temples, desperately trying to rid herself of a Tony-induced headache. Pepper simply pointed towards a corridor to the teens’ left. “He’s down there… Please just get him to fix FRIDAY before I kill him.”

Peter grinned widely and led Ashley down to Tony’s personal lab. The man in question was crouched in a far corner, pulling at some wires. There was a Stark Pad connected up to the mainframe that was running FRIDAY through the whole building.

“Hey, Mr Stark,” Peter greeted cheerfully as he hung his backpack up on a coat hook by the door. Ashley did the same with her own bag and followed Peter further into the room. Tony looked up from the mess of entangled wires he was trying to sort through, sweat dripping from his forehead – he had clearly been at this for a few hours.

“Hey kid – uh, kids – sorry I’m not very organised. I was trying to sort an update for FRIDAY and it’s gone a bit wrong. She’s speaking in binary and she’s tripped half of the security alert system.” Tony let out an exasperated sigh as he stood up, wiping his forehead on a spare towel that was laying around.

“W-We could come back another time if now’s not good for you, Mr Stark.” Ashley’s quiet voice popped up. Tony fixed her with a stare for a minute, before breaking out into a grin; eyes glinting wickedly.

“No need for that! In fact, why don’t you take a look at FRIDAY for me. She could probably use a fresh pair of eyes.”

Ashley’s eyes went wide at the suggestion. Tony Stark was asking her to look at a one-of-a-kind AI that he had built. At first Ashley tried to stutter out a ‘no, I couldn’t possibly…’ before Peter _oh-so-helpfully_ pushed her towards the mainframe.

She took a look at the mess of wires inside. It really wasn’t well organised, but it seemed like a simple fix. The tricky bit was going to be fixing FRIDAY’s code before the wires could be reconnected. She studied the wires for a few moments, before pulling out a blue wire and plugging the Stark Pad in where that wire had previously been connected. She sat the tablet on her lap and looked through the lines of code, which had been meticulously organised. Well, all apart from one area, which had been totally scrambled. The code was beautiful and incredibly sophisticated. Ashley had never had the chance to work with something so enhanced at school – she had only read about it. She deleted the fried bit of code, as it was totally unsalvageable before she began writing out her own code in replacement.

Tony and Peter observed her from a few metres away, both of them staying silent so as not to disturb her. Peter was almost a little envious that Ashley had been given an opportunity to work on FRIDAY like this, but then he remembered that there was no way Tony would ever trust FRIDAY to Peter, especially when his strengths were certainly not in coding. Tony caught Peter’s sharp gaze and sent a mischievous wink in his direction. _‘So, it was a test,’_ Peter thought. A test which Peter could see Ashley was well on her way to passing.

Approximately half an hour later, Ashley had reconnected the blue wire she had pulled out, a nervous smile on her face. She glanced up at the ceiling and spoke. “FRIDAY, can you tell me what the time is please?”

“Hello Miss Sampson, the time is now four seventeen pm.”

Ashley let out a relieved sigh when FRIDAY answered. Tony cheered and walked up behind Ashley, patting her on the back for a job well-done. Tony didn’t miss the slight flinch at the touch. “Good job kid. Any chance you can sort out the little security alert malfunction, while I get Peter started up on some stuff?”

Ashley simply nodded in response and turned back to the mainframe. She connected the Stark Pad into a gap where Tony had previously pulled out a mass of wires. She resumed her previous frantic typing in order to fix the broken code, which Tony may have scrambled on purpose. Or at least some of it was on purpose. He meant to break the alert system but having FRIDAY’s language circuits break down was a complete accident which he wasn’t even sure how he had managed. He left Ashley to it before walking over to Peter’s workstation on the other side of the lab.

“So, what do you think Pete? Think she’s got what it takes to join the elite team?” Tony’s suggestive eyebrows told Peter that Tony clearly already thought so and was probably having internship documents drafted up this second. But it meant a lot to Peter that Tony was asking for his opinion.

“Yeah, Mr Stark! Ashley’s crazy smart.”

“That’s what I thought. I was thinking about getting her to help you out with those web shooter upgrades you wanted.”

Peter's eyes lit up at that. It would be a great way for him to tell Ashley that he was Spider-Man, even though the thought of it made him sick with nerves. “That would be great, Mr Stark.”

Tony left him to crack on with trying out some new web formulas and returned to Ashley, who was just finishing up the new code. He hovered behind her for a moment, looking at the code over his shoulder. It looked a little rough around the edges, which could cause a few small glitches, but it looked almost exactly like the original code he installed. When Ashley finished entering the code, she unplugged the tablet and corrected the mass of wiring inside. As soon as the last wire was plugged in, the red light that had bathed the tower switched off and FRIDAY made an announcement over the speakers.

“All systems repaired and fully functioning, boss.”

Tony brought his hands together in a slow clap. “Very impressive Miss Sampson.” Ashley pulled a face at being addressed as such, but she thanked Tony none the less. “Why don't you and I find somewhere quiet to have a chat?”

Ashley paled, anxious that she had done something wrong. As she walked by Peter, who had since donned a lab coat and a pair of goggles, he gave her a thumbs up, but that did nothing to help her nerves. She followed Tony out to the main floor, where Pepper was sipping a mug of coffee as she poured over the penthouse surveillance feed on her own Stark Pad. As Tony and Ashley walked over, Pepper sent the young girl a bright smile, trying to reassure her. She offered a hand out for Ashley to shake, which the young girl did so hesitantly. Pepper noticed how clammy her hands were, likely from the anxiety that she was clearly experiencing.

“Welcome to Stark Industries, Ashley.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I didn't update last week! It's been crazy busy. 
> 
> There's a lot of 'sciencey' bits in this chapter - by no stretch is any of it accurate. I never really liked Science when I was at school, so sorry if any of it is blatantly wrong.

After grabbing a coffee for himself, Tony led the girls across to the sofas in the centre of the room. Tony and Pepper sat side by side on the middle sofa, with Ashley placing herself on the furthest end of the sofa to the right of them. Her fingers twitched nervously in her lap and she couldn’t meet either Tony or Pepper’s gaze. Pepper decided to break the silence first, hoping her voice would be more soothing than Tony’s, especially as her fiancé had a tendency to be blunt.

“Ashley, I’m very impressed with the work you did on FRIDAY. Not many people would be able to repair an advanced AI quite like that and certainly not as fast as you did. Even Tony was stuck on it. Although, that might have something to do with the lack of proper sleep and over-dependence on coffee…” Pepper fixed him with a hard glare before turning back to Ashley with a sweet smile.

Ashley simply looked at Pepper with awestruck, glazed-over eyes, her mouth hanging ever so slightly open at the compliment. “Th-Thank you Miss Potts,” she stuttered out quietly, gaze falling back to her fidgeting fingers.

“Tony and I would like to offer you an internship with us – similar to Peter’s. But we would also like to know what you would want to get out of this experience.”

Ashley was struck speechless. Her eyes were open impossibly wide as she regarded Pepper and Tony, looking for the slightest hint that this was a joke, or that she was dreaming. With all the injuries lately and the distinct lack of food, perhaps she had finally succumbed to a fever?

“I think you broke her, Pep.” Tony chuckled light-heartedly. He leaned forward, reaching for Pepper’s Stark Pad and brought a hologram up for them all to see. Ashley recognised her school’s emblem on the documents he had pulled up. She didn’t have time to register that Tony had clearly hacked her school’s server before he began reciting her latest report card. “IT and Computer Science A, Physics A, Biology A, Chemistry A, Advanced Biochem Studies A, English A, Maths A, Statistics A, Psychology Studies A, Geography B, History A, Modern Foreign Languages A, Art & Design A, Music A and Physical Education C. If that isn’t the most remarkable report card I’ve ever seen, I don’t know what is.”

“I need to pick up my Geography and P.E. grades…” Ashley mumbled. Her cheeks were flushed red as Tony continued.

“Midtown Science Fair winner this year and second place to Peter last year, fixed member of the school’s Academic Decathlon team… Kid, you’re a genius. When do you have time for all this?” She muttered a response along the lines of ‘I study a lot’, which seemed to satisfy Tony as he closed the hologram down. “Stark Industries is in some dire need of fresh blood. All these old engineers and scientists are has-beens – _not_ including myself of course. It needs the inspiring and creative minds of youth and even if Stark Industries isn’t somewhere you want to spend the rest of your life, how good would it look on an MIT application?”

Ashley couldn’t deny the logic there. She would have a much better chance of getting a scholarship to MIT with a Stark Industries internship under her belt. Even if it wasn’t a full scholarship, after exams she could get a job and start saving up some money and she could probably work during university as well.

“Your skills and knowledge put you far ahead of some of the employees that have been here for years,” Pepper commented. She picked up a stack of papers that were sitting neatly on the coffee table and handed them across to Ashley. “Therefore, this would of course be a paid internship. We are not in the business of exploiting child labour after all.”

“Th-This would be paid?” Ashley’s voice was scratchy as the sounds clawed up her throat. Pepper nodded and smiled softly.

“Yes - it’s paid based on the current internship wage packet, but of course there is always flexibility to discuss it further. It also comes with private medical insurance and access to all medical and recreational amenities available at the tower.”

“I understand exams are coming up in the next couple of weeks,” Tony began. “So, to start off I was considering one compulsory afternoon a week on Wednesdays after school. Once exams are over, we’ll up it to Wednesday afternoons and a day at the weekend. Of course, if you want to come over more frequently than that, all you have to do is ask.”

This was a dream come true for Ashley. She subtly pinched her hand to check if she was dreaming. It hurt, but she didn’t wake up so either this was real, or she was in deep with the dream. She thought it was more likely to be the latter, so maybe she could just indulge herself a little longer. Pepper’s voice distracted her from her thoughts as the red head continued explaining the internship.

“As you’re only fifteen, we need a parent or guardian to sign this. We were wondering if we could possibly meet your parents?”

“No.” The reply came out sharply, startling both Pepper and Tony. Ashley’s breaths began to pick up with the rising panic in her chest. “I mean, they both work really long hours and have to take care of my little brother, so I don’t think they would have time to come here…”

“We could always come to your home to meet them. I’m sure the meeting wouldn’t take up too much of their time.” Pepper countered, growing more wary as Ashley’s hands fisted into the fabric of her hoodie. The same hoodie, Pepper noticed, that the girl had been wearing on Friday. It was black with a white skeleton transfer that was fading. The hoodie had been a present from her grandparents a couple of years prior and was wearing into holes in the cuffs.

“Could I just take the paperwork home and get my parents to sign it?” Although it made Pepper uneasy, she nodded her head in consent and made a mental note of the visible drop in Ashley’s shoulders.

Tony clapped his hands together loudly, breaking the tense atmosphere. “Great! Now that that’s all sorted, why don’t we get you settled in the lab and we can discuss some projects?” Both Tony and Pepper stood up, Ashley following suit. Pepper chuckled to herself and lightly whacked Tony on the shoulder.

“I’m guessing that’s a cue for me to start getting dinner ready?” In answer, Tony’s stomach grumbled rather loudly. “You two go have fun for a bit. But not too much. Dinner will be ready in less than an hour.”

Ashley followed Tony back into the lab, where Peter was casing up some vials of white fluid. There were about ten different vials on the table, marked with various coloured stoppers. Tony picked up one with a blue stopper at the top and examined it carefully. “How did you get on adding the electrodes?”

“I got it first time,” Peter boasted gleefully. “And I didn’t accidentally fry the nanites this time.”

Tony grinned and put the vial back on the table. He gestured to the small bottles, capturing Ashley’s attention. “Although there are plenty of Stark Industries projects I will want you two working on, Peter also works on some of the Avengers’ tech and upgrades. He’s currently working on refining Spider-Man’s web fluid.”

Ashley stared at Peter as if he had grown a second head. Peter sheepishly smiled and picked up the vial Tony had set down moments before hand. “This one is quite special – it’s a special taser web. It contains dozens of small nanites and electrodes to produce a charge large enough to incapacitate a person without doing serious damage. It can also be used to fry circuitry so if he ever gets attacked by killer robots, he’ll be ready.”

Tony sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “I feel like that’s a dig at the Ultron fiasco. Why did I ever tell you that story?”

“You didn’t,” Peter answered. “Captain America told me after I tried to build a cooking robot.”

“And how did that go?” Ashley inquired her friend, genuinely intrigued with the idea of a robot that could assist with cooking.

“Terribly,” Tony answered for him. “Peter now has a life-time ban from using my kitchen.”

Ashley sniggered lightly, imagining a robot with a whisk and wooden spoon for hands chasing the Avengers around the large penthouse. Tony couldn’t help but crack a small sound at the laugh as he picked up a pair of prototype web shooters. These were smaller than the ones Peter was currently using. They were shaped like a thin cuff that would wrap around the wrist, a small trigger jutting out that would sit in Spider-Man’s palm.

“Peter is working on a more compact web shooter which would not only be able to shoot different kinds of webs but also use different kinds of web fluid. The web fluid formula would need to be condensed down into these…” Tony pulled out a small disk, the size of a small coin. As he turned over the shooter in his hands, Ashley could pick out five more slots filled with these small disks. “We would therefore need to create some sort of program so that these could become easily interchangeable in a fight, whether that be a holographic screen or if we linked the shooters up to the suit’s AI.”

“Spider-Man has an AI?” Ashley was quite surprised to hear this. As she considered Spider-Man to be a bit dense at the best of times, she thought it would be a bit strange that Tony had given him access to an AI.

“Yeah, for some reason he called it Karen…” Tony shook his head disapprovingly, while Peter fixed his mentor with a hurt glare. “Also, I probably shouldn’t have told you any of this without getting you to sign an NDA first.”

“I promise this conversation doesn’t leave this room, Mr Stark.” Ashley was quick to chime in.

Peter just simply laughed, clearly getting some amusement out of the whole scenario. “Don’t worry Ash. Mr Stark just isn’t very organised when it comes to this sort of stuff. He’s normally got an army of lawyers behind him who do it all for him.” Peter only laughed harder when Tony smacked him lightly round the back of the head with a stack of papers.

“You’re getting too damn cheeky for your own good, Underoos.”

“Language,” Peter snapped back light-heartedly.

Ashley couldn’t help the grin spread across her face as she watched the pair interact. The lab had a warm and comfortable atmosphere and Ashley hoped she could settle quickly into the same rhythm.

“So, we’ve probably got a few more minutes before Pepper calls us for dinner.” Tony advised as he led Ashley over to a worktable just behind Peter. “Why don’t you get yourself set up here and have a think over what sort of stuff you want to work on. This area is all yours, so if you need any equipment or any tech, just let me know. I’ll get you your own laptop and Stark Pad ready for next week.”

Ashley sat down on the desk chair at the table. The chair was comfy – much more so than the desk chairs she was used to at school all day and it looked like it hadn’t ever been sat on before, unlike the ones in the library, where holes had ripped through and the stuffing was hanging out the sides. Against one wall was a collection of books on mechanical engineering, coding, physics and biochemistry. There were various pieces of lab equipment including microscopes, beakers, test tubes and burners as well as welding equipment and mechanical tools. Her desk had some drawers and she opened the top drawer to find notepads and a collection of stationary – mostly in pink and purple for some reason. She frowned at the thought that Mr Stark had gone to so much trouble for her.

She pulled out the notepad and picked up a mechanical pencil, clicking the top a few times before she started to write out some ideas. At first, she wrote down the things she had daydreamed about in class – ideas she had previously noted down on scrap bits of paper, but never had the time or resources to follow-through with. There was one thought in particular that had stayed with her for the last few years. It was an AI system that could be used to monitor both physical and mental health. She had never considered the application before, but maybe now she could actually propel some force into the idea. It was something that could be used to help assist vulnerable people with being able to live independently.

The thought had originally come when her grandfather’s health started to decline from Alzheimer’s. He had always said he never wanted to go into a home or be away from his wife. Her nana had vowed to look after him for the rest of their lives together. A stroke killed him shortly after. Around six months passed before her nana left as well, her death brought on by a sudden heart attack.

She crammed all the thoughts she had on the AI design onto a page before flicking over to start a new one. The web shooters on Peter’s desk caught her eye and she began drawing a rough diagram for an interface that could be added for ease of access. She jotted down several ideas, such as an easy-to-navigate holographic system in order for the superhero to quickly select the desired web and a voice command system for even quicker selections. She scribbled down the logistics of connecting it to the AI, which could be more useful in certain situations if Spider-Man needs to be discreet, but also be used stand-alone if he found himself without Karen, as Mr Stark had called her.

She was brought out of her musings when FRIDAY spoke over the speakers. “Lady Boss would like to inform you that dinner is nearly ready.”

Tony and Peter finished organising the vials of web fluid they had been working on and Ashley filed the notebook and pencil back into her drawer. She followed the boys to the sink in the far corner of the room to wash their hands. Beside the sink was a door, marked with a large ‘No Unauthorised Persons' sign. Tony caught Ashley reading the sign and decided to explain what was behind the door.

“My suits are stored behind that door. Along with a few other top secret things...” Tony informed her. “Maybe one day I'll give you a full tour inside.” He winked and left to help Pepper dish up the dinner, leaving Peter and Ashley alone.

“Are you okay?” Peter asked as he dried off his hands and allowed Ashley to move to the sink. She nodded her head as she washed her hands, knowing there was probably some dirt underneath her fingernails from where she had been sorting through FRIDAY's wiring. “You just seemed really overwhelmed and I wanted to make sure you were alright. MJ, Ned and I have all been worried about you...” Peter trailed off, wondering if he should have said the last bit.

There was a brief pause before Ashley spoke quietly, and if it weren’t for Peter's enhanced hearing he doubt he would have heard her. “I'm sorry... I’ve just had a lot going on.” Her voice wavered and her eyes were filling with unshed tears. Peter swooped forward to collect her in a tight hug, being careful not to crush her with his super strength. Ashley hesitantly laid her forehead on her friend's shoulder and wrapped her arms loosely around his middle, but she refused to let the tears spill over. “Peter... Is this real?” Her voice was barely a whisper, frightened that this little bubble of hope would burst, and she would find herself waking up in her tent for another day of school; or even worse, locked in the airing cupboard, her parents shouting horrid insults at her through the door.

Peter's hold on her tightened imperceptibly. He worried that his grip would break her fragile body as he felt her ribcage poking into his side through the fabric of both their hoodies. “It's real Ash. I promise it's real.”

For the first time, Ashley was truly thankful to have Peter as a friend.

Tony popped his head in the door a minute later to hurry them both along, but halted when he saw the two embraced, Ashley's back to him. Peter caught Tony's gaze and held up a finger, indicating the two would be out in a minute. Nodding his head, he turned and left to let Pepper know. Sure enough, not a minute later, the pair were heading out to meet them at the dining table that Ashley hadn’t remembered being in the room previously. The table was set for six, with Pepper, Tony and Colonel Rhodes already being sat down. Pepper motioned to Ashley to sit in the empty seat beside her, while Peter went to sit opposite, beside Tony. Rhodes was sat at one end of the table between Tony and Pepper, leaving an empty space the other end between Ashley and Peter.

“Brucie-bear will be joining us shortly, so go ahead and tuck in.”

“I hope you like Spaghetti Carbonara,” Pepper added, smiling at Ashley as she began twirling the pasta on her fork. Ashley simply nodded and looked down at the food. Truthfully, it looked really appetising, but Ashley wasn’t sure she currently had the stomach for it. She absently twirled the spaghetti on her fork when the elevator dinged, signalling the arrival of their final dinner guest. Ashley's fork fell from her grasp with a loud clatter as she realised _the_ Bruce Banner was standing in front of her.

Tony smirked as he stood up to greet Bruce. “Jolly Green, meet SI's newest intern, Ashley Sampson. Ashley this is-”

“Dr Bruce Banner!” Ashley finished for him. She was now standing up to greet the renowned scientist, who extended an arm for a handshake towards her. She shook his hand eagerly. “Your study on the medical applications of gamma radiation is amazing! I was particularly interested in your hypothesis on using it to enable organic limb regrowth!”

Sensing she had been shaking his hand too long, she quickly let go and dropped her head, hoping she hadn’t embarrassed herself too badly. Bruce was looking rather bashful himself, but all three of the other adults present could tell he was rather happy to hear the compliment. Bruce had a bit of a complex when it came to _The Other Guy_ , so for someone to recognise him first and foremost for his scientific work made a welcome change of pace. It was rather reminiscent of Peter's first encounter with him and Bruce had definitely noticed the wide grin on Peter's face at the exchange.

“It's very nice to meet you Miss Sampson. Unfortunately, my work is still only in the hypothesis stage as it is proving very difficult to control the isotopes, but perhaps you could assist me with my research some time?”

Ashley nodded eagerly in answer as Bruce sat down at the table. The dinner continued with some light-hearted conversation and a few questions sent in Ashley's direction. She slowly ate her way through the spaghetti, trying not to disrupt her sensitive stomach and used answering questions as a welcome break between bites.

“What sort of projects would you like to work on at SI?” Pepper asked.

Ashley quickly swallowed the mouthful she had. The meal was very delicious, but the creamy sauce wasn’t sitting well with her. She sipped on her glass of water to try to rid the nauseous feeling in her throat before answering Pepper.

“I want to work on things that will help other people. I want to help people, maybe by creating tools for emergency services or schools... anyone really.”

“And do you think you will be able to achieve that at Stark Industries?” Ashley simply nodded in answer to Pepper’s question, which seemed to satisfy the CEO.

Once everyone had finished eating, (Ashley was quite impressed that she had managed to eat over three quarters of the bowl) she offered to clean up after the meal and had even started gathering dishes, but Pepper told her the boys had it covered as Rhodey took the dishes from Ashley’s grasp. Pepper sat down with Ashley on the sofas for a few minutes, chatting about some of the accomplishments of Stark Industries through the years, before Happy was called to take Ashley home – despite her insistence that she would walk as it wasn’t that far away. Peter was apparently allowed to take the subway home even though he lived further away, which Ashley found a bit odd, but maybe they trusted Peter to look after himself.

When she arrived at her tent, she didn’t go to bed immediately. She kept on walking, far into the trees to find somewhere fairly far away from the tent. It was nearing nine o’clock in the evening, and her stomach had been a bundle of nerves for the last few hours. It was getting to the point that the stomach pains were becoming unbearable, so she found a spot and crashed to her knees, throwing up everything she had eaten that day. Granted, it wasn’t much – just the most delicious pasta she had ever had and the apple she had eaten at lunch time.

Ashley was rather upset that she had found herself chucking up the lovely meal that Pepper had gone to the trouble to prepare for her. She hoped this was just a one-time thing as once the internship started, she should be able to start paying for some food for herself. It might not be much, but she could probably afford a meal a day while saving the rest of her money. However, that presented another problem. She needed a bank account. To open a bank account, she needed to be sixteen or accompanied by a parent/guardian.

Swallowing her pride, she pulled out her phone and hovered over one of the three contacts she had in there. After a minute of debating with herself, she finally pressed the dial button and held the phone up to her ear.

 _“Carter, to what do I owe the pleasure?”_ A low voice answered after two rings.

“Murdock… I need that favour.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been a terrible author! I am so sorry. Here's another update and I will try to aim for 2 chapters a week going forward.

Ashley headed straight for Hell’s Kitchen after school the next day. She weaved her way through the crowded streets of Manhattan as she made her way to the familiar, run-down complex. She didn’t bother trying the elevator, knowing it was most likely busted as always and made her way up several flights of stairs to get to her destination. She stopped outside a door with a sign painted on (although the paint was starting to flake off around the edges) – Nelson & Murdock Attorneys at Law. She gently rapped her knuckles on the fogged glass window and made her way inside.

There was a young woman sitting at the desk in the middle of the room, nursing over a mug of hot chocolate as she poured over some insurance documents for a case that had been sent through. She glanced up as Ashley stepped inside the doorway, pushing back her long blonde locks and quickly stood up, rushing over to pull Ashley into a hug. “Ashley! I haven’t seen you in ages!”

“Hey Karen,” Ashley greeted, unconsciously relaxing in Karen’s arms. Her shoulders fell from their near-constant raised position as the woman run her fingers through Ashley’s mess of dark waves.

Karen made a low hum in the back of her throat as she stepped back to get a good look at the young girl. “You look tired… And you’re far too skinny. What do they feed you at that school?” Karen was a total mother hen around Ashley, something that Foggy reminded her of constantly and now was no exception. She sat the young girl down in a chair opposite hers and put the kettle on to make Ashley a drink. As she poured the hot chocolate sachet into the mug along with a splash of milk, Foggy stepped out of his office to see what the commotion was about.

“Oh, hey Ash,” he greeted and gave her an awkward side-hug from where she was sat down. She greeted Foggy in return before taking the mug of hot chocolate from Karen and the three of them soon found themselves all sat down around Karen’s desk as they waited for Matt to return from whatever he was doing.

“How are you?” Karen asked. She busied her hands as they talked, tidying away screwed up post-its and organising files in her desk drawer. “I feel like it’s been months since we’ve seen you.”

“I’m okay.” Ashley answered. She took a sip of the hot chocolate, revelling in the feeling as the warm liquid slid down her throat. For the first time in days, she wasn’t shivering with the cold, so this trip was worth it just for the hot chocolate alone. “Exams are coming up, so I’ve been busy with studying.”

“Uh-huh…” Foggy fixed her with a meaningful glare. “So, you haven’t been running around New York with a couple of vigilantes then and putting yourself in danger?”

“Nope. I wouldn’t dream of such a thing.” There was a brief pause before the three of them dissolved into light laughter. The three were still chuckling to themselves a minute later when Matt stepped inside. He smiled as he heard the sound of his friends laughing.

“Sounds like our guest has arrived then.” He walked over to the three and stood behind Ashley’s chair, putting one hand on the back of the chair and resting the other on her head. Matt couldn’t see the frown that was no doubt on her face, but he could definitely feel the heat of a glare, which just made him smile wider.

“Murdock,” Ashley said shortly, although there was no bite to her tone.

“So, care to tell me why you a) don’t have a bank account, and b) suddenly need one now?” Matt jumped straight in, thinking back to the phone call the two had had the previous night. When she had called, his first thought was that she had gotten herself hurt. He was rather shocked when she had asked him for a favour. _‘I need you to help me open a bank account.’_ The request had certainly thrown him, but he was just happy she had come to him for help. It might only be a small favour now, but maybe in time she could confide in him with what was really going on.

“I got an internship and I need a bank account so they can pay me.” Ashley decided to ignore the first portion of Matt’s question and hoped he wouldn’t probe any further. She was quite thankful when he didn’t and instead asked what the internship was for. “I’m going to be an intern at Stark Industries.”

There was a low-pitched whistle from Foggy beside her and an excited gasp from Karen. “Stark Industries? That’s huge!” Karen reached across the desk and picked up one of Ashley’s hands in both of hers. “I’m so happy for you!”

While both Karen and Foggy were congratulating Ashley, Matt’s face was stony. Stark worried him. The man was completely unpredictable, and Matt was very much under the impression that he didn’t do anything for anyone without an ulterior motive. If he were to find out Ashley’s alter-ego, Matt wouldn’t put it past the billionaire to hand her over to the government or SHIELD.

“Matt?” Karen grabbed his attention after he had been zoning out for the last couple of minutes. He hadn’t realised that his grip on the back of Ashley’s chair was so strong that the wood was straining under the force. He let go, trying not to think about ways he would like to pummel Tony Stark and instead focused on the three heartbeats in the room belonging to his friends. He found comfort in the soft thumps when he was upset or angry and it helped calm him down considerably.

“Sorry, I was just thinking… Anyway, shouldn’t we be heading off? The banks will be closing soon, so we’ll need to get a move on.”

As Matt moved towards the door, Ashley and Karen both stood up, Karen pulling her jacket on as she walked out with them. Ashley gave her a confused glance, wondering why Karen was joining them. “Matt thought it would look better if we were sisters, so for all intents and purposes, I’m Karen Carter, your legal guardian for the next couple of hours. Apparently it would be more believable if someone who wasn’t obviously disabled was your guardian – his words not mine.”

Ashley just nodded, letting a small grin sneak past her lips. She definitely wouldn’t mind having Karen for an older sister. She was also quite happy that her account would be in her real full name. As soon as she could, she was going to get her legal name changed back to Carter, but that would need to wait until she was at least sixteen.

It didn’t actually take them long to get an account set up at the bank. Ashley was able to just sit back for the most of it, only pitching in to dictate what sort of account she wanted. Matt and Karen did most of the talking and handed over some very convincing fake ID and guardianship documents. Ashley didn’t ask Matt where he had gotten those from, figuring the less she knew about the matter the better. Within half an hour, the account was set up and Ashley had been given her brand new bank card.

“Did you have any money you wanted to deposit today?” The bank clerk asked.

Ashley shifted in her seat then, pulling a wad of cash from her jeans pocket. She had been sitting with her hand wedged inside her pocket for most of the time they were there. Neither Matt nor Karen knew she actually had money to put in the account today. The clerk nodded as Ashley handed over the cash and begun counting the notes. “Two hundred dollars exactly. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

It was a huge weight off her mind as the money was processed and he then showed her his computer screen, stating the bank balance at two hundred dollars. Now she didn’t have to carry all that cash around with her every day. She had kept roughly fifty dollars back in case she needed the cash in an emergency. The clerk finished explaining about the benefits of the account and about how the interest rates worked before sending the trio on their way. Once they were outside, Matt was very quick to pipe up.

“How long have you been carrying that cash on you?”

Ashley hesitated. She couldn’t very well say for the past three weeks. “Uh, just since this morning. It was hidden away in a pair of old socks.” Not a total lie as she did keep the money in her socks. She just happened to carry the socks with her all the time.

“Uh-huh…” Matt’s tone wasn’t very convinced. Nevertheless, he let the subject be, knowing just how stubborn the girl could be. “Right, now that that’s done, shall we grab some take-out and head back to the office?”

“Actually, I have some homework I need to finish, so I’m going to head home soon.”

Karen’s face fell at her response. “Really? You’re going to leave just like that after I haven’t seen you in months?” She tried to play the guilt trip card to get Ashley to stick around a little longer, at least until she could get some food and maybe another hot chocolate in the poor girl. “How about we do a coffee run on the way back?”

Ashley nodded, the thought about a warm drink too tempting to pass up. With the Stark Industries internship now in her grasp, she didn’t feel too bad about treating herself to a nice hot drink. It would certainly help against the cold that was biting against her skin. So the three of them took a detour into the coffee shop across the street from the office before returning back. Ashley refused to let either Karen or Matt pay for her mint mocha, which was honestly the most delicious thing she had tasted. Matt had ordered a black coffee and Karen had ordered herself a gingerbread latte, a cappuccino for Foggy and she had selected a handful of pastries and cakes to take back with them.

When the three arrived, Foggy pulled an extra chair from his office and the four of them sat around Karen's desk. It was reminiscent of the first time she had met Foggy and Karen after a patrol with Matt had gone awry. The pair had stumbled into the office together one evening after being outnumbered by a group of rogue triads. The pair had taken quite a beating and needed somewhere to hide and treat their wounds, which had led them to the office, where Karen and Foggy were working late on a case.

“Have you read through your internship contract yet, Ashley?” Karen asked, as she picked up a cherry bakewell from the box of pastries. “Because I know a couple of really good lawyers who can make sure it’s up to scratch.”

“I have read it…” Ashley answered as she reached into her tattered backpack. “But feel free to give it a browse.” She pulled the large binder out of her bag that housed the contract along with some other documents Pepper had presented her with the previous evening, including a map of the Avengers’ Tower and a rough guide to current projects under Stark Industries. There were also several non-disclosure agreements that Ashley had already signed ready to return.

Foggy was very quick to pry the folder from Ashley’s hands and start flicking through the details. Every so often he made an appreciative noise, which Matt huffed a small chuckle at.

“This is surprisingly good…” Foggy murmured, speaking to himself rather than anyone else in the room. “I’m particularly impressed by the flexibility in the contract and the consideration for school exams and projects. The internship also comes with an automatic reference for university applications and application for funding through Stark Industries. Although I’m not sure you’d need it with the pay-check you’d be getting. As long as you’re sensible with your money, you could easily save a thousand dollars a month while you’re living at home…”

Ashley internally winced a little bit at his last sentence. She simply offered him a small smile, hoping it didn’t come out as awkward as it felt. As Foggy handed back the contract, Ashely flicked over to the last page, which needed to be filled in. She had filled in most of the details already, putting in her last home address and filling in her date of birth and school information. There were a couple of boxes currently left blank – guardian’s phone number and guardian’s signature. Ashley was well-versed in forging signatures but providing a phone number was going to be a bit more difficult. She had previously forged her mum’s signature for the Academic Decathlon finals in Washington. It had earned her next to a week in the airing cupboard after the trip, but Ashley still vowed it had been worth it.

“Hey, Matt?” Ashley quietly drew the vigilante’s attention. “I need to put down an emergency contact number… Any chance I can put down your burner phone?”

“Why?” Matt asked suspiciously. “Surely it should be your parents' number that should be put down.”

“They'll never agree to let me go.” Ashley figured this would be true if her parents were still around. It’s easier to lie if the lie is based on a truth. “And if they found out, they'd take the money I earn from me. I was just going to tell them I have extra Decathlon practice after school...”

Matt pursed his lips tightly. “Your parents take money from you?”

“They would if they knew I had any...” They had done it to her before, after they had caught her with some of the allowance her grandparents had given her.

“You know you can report them to CPS, right?” Karen said gently.

Ashley shook her head, a stray tear running down the side of her nose. “I don’t want to end up in care or get taken away from my school. I’m nearly sixteen. I have two and a half years of school left and then I’ll be going to university. I can stick it out a little longer...”

If anything, Ashley was trying to reassure herself with her words. Living in a tent was hardly an ideal life, but she just had to remind herself, if she can stick it out just a little while longer, she can go to university, especially if she has savings from the Stark Internship. She can do this.

Matt's resolve broke quickly. A part of him wanted to push even further as he knew she wasn’t telling the whole truth. The stutter in her heartbeat alone gave that away, but her wavering tone of voice was also a pretty good sign. Matt pulled out his burner phone and handed it over to Ashley, letting her note down the mobile’s number.

“So, if Tony Stark calls, who should I say I am?”

“Frank Sampson.”

“Alright kid, but you got to promise me one thing, okay?” Matt paused for a second, wondering how best to phrase his request. “If you need any help – like food or a bed for the night, or however many nights, you come to one of us... If you need _anything_ , you got that?”

“Y-Yeah... I promise.”

Ashley left the office later that evening with two more phone numbers in her contacts – _Karen <3 _and _Fogggy._ Ashley thought it was quite cute that Karen put a heart next to her name and she found herself once again wishing that Karen really could be her sister. Whereas Foggy had put too many ‘g's in his name, but Ashley thought that was quite funny and very much a Foggy thing to do.

She finished off her homework in her tent, using her powers to provide a soft purple light in the darkness. She was able to summon a lilac orb that hung in the air just above her head. Every so often, the orb would crackle restlessly, and Ashley would swear down her powers had a mind of their own. In all fairness, she could probably count on her fingers how often her powers worked the exact way she had intended, while there were countless other times when they just reacted to events instinctually.

Once she had finished the last of her homework, she decided to cram in a quick patrol before bed time. Mostly, she was just craving to stretch her wings for a while but putting a stop to some petty crime seemed like a lot of fun at the same time. She stuck to Manhattan (but made a conscious effort to avoid Hell’s Kitchen of course). She flew across the rooftops, landing on random buildings in order to survey her surroundings. She came across a couple of purse-snatchers that were fairly easy to take down. The civilians had thanked her and asked for her name, so Ashley decided to start circulating the ‘Pegasus’ name, because there was no way in hell she was going to let the internet pick some crappy name for her.

It was nearing eleven o’clock when she decided to call it a night. She spread her wings once more and launched off the building she was currently perched on. Unfortunately, she didn’t get very far when a shot rung out. Instinctively, she dived as soon as she heard the sound, and by some miracle, the bullet that was aiming for her skimmed past, narrowly missing her kneecap. The rooftop closest to her was currently under construction; the developers were clearly looking to add another storey or two to it. She landed on the roof and immediately ducked behind a large concrete pillar. Her wings quickly folded away as she took note of her surroundings. There were tall pillars and beams stretching high above and with the cover of darkness, a few tight, dark corners to hide in. She couldn’t risk peeking her head out of her current spot and getting caught, so she decided to focus with the skills Matt had taught her.

Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and allowed her hearing to take over. She held her breath and managed to slow her heartbeat down to an almost painfully slow rhythm. From there she was able to pinpoint four sets of footsteps. There were two to the right of her – one was nimble, and she could picture the person stepping on their tiptoes, while the other steps were louder and slower, and they came down with considerable force. There was another set of footsteps very close by on her left. This one had a limp – one foot stepped down heavily, whereas the other was quick to follow close behind and didn’t have as much force. The fourth pair was probably around ten metres away – this one seemed to be pacing, first to the left and then the right. The worn away concrete of the roof crunched each time he turned around to pace the other direction.

The next sound she heard was the unmistakeable sound of a gun’s safety clicking off. This was from the pacing guy, as it sounded further away than the other footsteps. Then voices followed. They were low and heavily accented, sounding of East Asian descent. The tone was taunting as they tried to cajole her into the open. “Come here little girl… If you come with us willingly, we won’t hurt you… too much.” The men started cackling after that, which threw Ashley off as she tried to listen to the footsteps coming closer.

Running out of options, she prayed her powers would co-operate with her and used them to bring down the beams above. As another gunshot rung out in the air, the beams supporting a half ceiling above fell down on them all. The rubble successfully deflected the bullet, but a stray piece of falling concrete fell on one of Ashley’s legs as she tried to roll away from the impact. She cried out as the lump landed on her left leg, effectively trapping her from moving any further. Her powers reacted instinctively after that. They managed to levitate the heavy concrete and launch it across the building top, taking out one of the two thugs that were still standing. Ashley tried not to think about the sound he made as he fell over the edge, or the resounding _splat_ when he came into contact with the road below.

Ashley didn’t have much time to survey her injuries, but she could at least gather that her leg wasn’t broken, so she could in theory stand on it. As long as she ignored the shooting pains from her ankle, that is. She didn’t have long to stand up and get her bearings before the last remaining thug came barrelling towards her, fists clenched. Before she had time to strike him, he had landed a punch to her face, which sent her staggering backwards into the pile of rubble. The movement and the pain she was in winded her for a second, but the other guy didn’t look to me in much better shape. There was a piece of metal sticking in his side, blood dripping at his feet with each step he took, but he still seemed hell bent on taking out Ashley. She knew she was too tired to fight with her powers, and she wouldn’t be able to focus properly. Instead, she picked up a length of broken scaffolding. It was just light enough that she could pick it up, groaning as she did so, but heavy enough that when she swung it, the guy in front of her was knocked out instantly.

Once she felt it safe to do so, she crawled her way out of the rubble, trying to find an open space to open her wings and return home. Before she could launch off the roof’s edge, her phone started ringing inside the pocket she had stitched into the inside of her hoodie (to stop her losing it in the middle of a fight just like this one). She fished the phone out and pressed answer without checking who the caller was as she was fairly certain she already knew.

_“You better not have been in that building that just came down in Midtown.”_

Ashley forced out a pained chuckle before she replied. “It’s not like the whole building came down.”

 _“What the hell happened?”_ Matt roared down the phone. Ashley didn’t think he’d ever sounded so angry before.

“I was about to go home before some freaking Yakuza-types started shooting at me. There were four of them… Now there’s only three, maybe less.”

_“Was it that Karito that sent them?”_

Ashley sighed. “I don’t know. Hold on, let me check.” She tucked the phone away in her pocket for a minute and limped carefully over to where one of her assailants was currently half-buried. He was a large balding man, his skin now extremely pale, which made the dark crimson blood staining around his mouth stand out more prominently. Ashley audibly winced as she took in his appearance. She had killed two people tonight. “Holy shit,” she murmured to herself, reaching down to the suit jacket he was wearing, now grey with concrete dust. She pulled out a piece of paper that was wedged inside his pocket. The paper was folded over several times and was only the size of a CD case when fully unfolded. On the paper was a list of names and an accompanying photo affixed with a paperclip of her talking to Matt on a rooftop, wings outstretched. This had only been taken a couple of days ago, as he wasn’t wearing his Daredevil gear. She turned her attention to the names that had been scribbled down next to the photo.

_Ashley Carter/Sampson_

_Frank Sampson – unknown_

_Eleanor Sampson – unknown_

_Lucas Sampson – unknown_

_Daniel Carter – deceased_

_Lily Carter – deceased_

_‘Daredevil’ - unknown_

_Matthew Murdock_

_Franklin Nelson_

_Karen Page_

_‘Spider-Man’ – unknown_


	9. Chapter 9

Ashley had spent over an hour on the phone to Matt that night, which was killing her battery. She had even been on the phone to him mid-flight as she returned to her tent, keeping an eye out the whole time. Someone had clearly been following her, so they might have already known that she was living in the woods behind the school. All she could think about was the list of names. She had told him almost everyone who was on the list, although she left out the Sampson family. The unknown that was marked next to them helped to reassure her. Even these people who were after her didn’t know where they were, which meant Lucas was safe.

“Matt they’ve been following me. They have a picture of us from Tuesday! They know who you are… They know about Karen and Foggy too! They even knew about my birth parents.”

 _“Hey, Ashley calm down!”_ Matt’s voice was stern on the other end of the phone. He could hear the rising tone in her voice, panic overtaking as her breaths came out in short, sharp pants. _“We can deal with this… Now tell me, who’s on this list?”_

Ashley took in a few deep breaths, but it didn’t help as tears began to cascade down her face. “Umm… M-My name. They’ve got Carter _and_ Sampson down as my last names. My birth parents’ names are both on their and it says deceased next to them.” She tried to muffle the broken sob that came out, but ultimately failed as she broke down into a fresh round of tears. “Th-Then it s-says your name, and F-Foggy and K-K-Karen’s names.”

_“Okay, you’re doing really well, Ash. Tell me where you are, and I’ll come get you.”_

Ashley looked at the trees surrounding her tent, as she landed. “N-No, I’ll be fine…”

_“You don’t sound fine. Just let me come get you. You can come back to my place and we can look out for each other?”_

“No!” Ashley shouted down the phone. “I can’t be around you, Matt. I-It’s not safe.” She paused, taking another look at her surroundings, trying to see if she could pinpoint any figures in the distance or see any sign of a disturbance near-by. She was met with silence except for Matt’s breathing down the phone. “It had your other name on their too…” She spoke quietly. “Daredevil and Spider-Man were both on the list with unknown next to their names. I don’t think they know…”

 _“That’s good… We can work with that.”_ Matt let out a loud sigh on the phone. There was some shuffling going on in the background, but Ashley was too exhausted to pick out the sounds. _“Just tell me where you are. I don’t feel right leaving you on your own right now. Are you still at that building?”_

“No,” she whispered, voice getting trapped in her throat. She let out a series of harsh coughs, hacking up the concrete dust that had gotten into her lungs. “I’m fine now, Matt.”

_“Yeah.. It sounds it.”_

“If something happens, I promise I’ll call you.”

Matt let out another resigned sigh. He accepted when he wasn’t going to win an argument, and sadly she would always be able to fly faster than he could run, so if she didn’t want to be found by him, she wouldn’t be. _“You better. I’ll put my ear to the ground, see what I can find out about this Karito… Just do me one favour.”_

“Sure…” Ashley replied quietly.

 _“I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but you should still go to Stark’s tomorrow. If anywhere in this city is safe, it’s that damn tower of his. I know I said he’s dangerous, but I think you’ll be safer there. And no patrolling for a while… Not until we can figure this out.”_ Ashley nodded, before letting out a strangled noise that Matt interpreted as an affirmative. _“Like I said before, if you need anything you call me straight away, you got that?”_

“Yes Matt.”

Matt checked with her once more to make sure she didn’t want him to come get her before finally hanging up the phone. She turned the phone off to try and conserve some of the battery life before she could charge it up at school the following day. Ashley didn’t sleep a wink that night. Instead she sat in the dark, legs curled up into her chest as she hugged herself, tears streaming down her face as the same thoughts ran through her head on a torturous loop. _‘You’ve put them in danger. They cared about you and this is how you thank them? If they get hurt, it’s your fault! Your parents’ deaths must have been your fault too.’_

The thoughts kept her up until the sun rose and her alarm went off the next morning. She turned her phone back on at seven in the morning, uncurling herself to change her clothes. She pulled on a different pair of jeans, a fresh t-shirt and her black hoodie with the skeleton print. It wasn’t enough to keep her warm, but she didn’t have many other clothing choices. Once her phone had turned on, the silence of her tent was permeated by the familiar ding of a text coming through, except it was on repeat like a broken record.

**_Matty:_ ** _Tell me if you need anything. 00:23am_

**_Karen <3: _ ** _Matt told us what happened. Do you need me to come to you? 00:42am_

**_Matty:_ ** _Please stay safe today. 05:02am_

**_Matty:_ ** _Make sure you go to the tower after school. Try and take your mind off everything by impressing that over-pompous billionaire. 05:36am_

**_MJ:_ ** _Hey, nerd. Do you want to hang out for a study date this weekend? We can study at my place. 06:28am_

**_Fogggy:_ ** _Let me know if you want somewhere to crash. We’re all here for you and none of us are going anywhere. 06:47am_

**_Iron Man:_ ** _Movie night tonight. Happy will pick you and Peter up outside school. 06:51am_

**_Karen <3: _ ** _I know you’ll knock them all dead at Stark Industries. Love you x 07:00am_

The texts put a small smile on her face. The smile didn’t last very long though, when she realised that all of these people who had texted her this morning were in danger because of her. When she read MJ’s text again, the tears from the previous night began to well up in her eyes. MJ wasn’t on the list and she needed to keep it that way. If that meant ignoring her best friend again, then so be it. She would do anything to keep MJ, Peter and Ned safe.

Ashley set off for school early that morning and found a quiet corner in the library to charge her phone before class. The school was mostly empty when she first arrived, with most of the teachers not even there yet. It didn’t take too long to charge the phone up to fifty percent, which is when she unplugged it and made her way to her first lesson of the day – Chemistry with Mr Harrington. Students were just starting to fill the corridors by this time, chatting at their lockers while they crammed in a quick breakfast snack before lessons started. Ashley instead dived straight into her classroom and made herself as comfortable as she could in her seat. Which wasn’t easy given she was fairly certain she had a sprained ankle and the whole right side of her face was hurting as if it was on fire. She tried to cover her face with her hair as much as she could, but as soon as Mr Harrington stepped inside the classroom, his eyes widened at the sight of her. He quickly closed the door and moved to Ashley’s desk near the back of the classroom. He pulled out a stool from the desk in front and sat in front of Ashley, eyes fixed on the ugly, indigo bruise sporting almost half her face.

Ashley’s eyes dropped down to her notebook, unable to meet her teacher’s gaze as he started talking. “Ash, what happened?”

Mr Harrington had always been one of her favourite teachers. He was kind and he cared about his students. He always wanted to see them succeed and would always lend a helping hand where he could. Which is why the sight of one of his best students, sat alone at her desk; a large, blackened bruise on her face, absolutely broke his heart.

“I tripped on the stairs last night…” Ashley mumbled, trying to feign embarrassment at her ‘clumsy’ actions. “I sprained my ankle and gave myself a black eye.” She chuckled humourlessly, trying to sell the act, but she really couldn’t bring herself to laugh.

Mr Harrington surveyed her, taking in the worn, tatty clothes, the way her left foot hovered over her right one and the tangles of unkempt hair she was trying to use as a shield to hide the bruise. Something didn’t quite add up. “Ashley, I want you to know if there’s something bothering you, you can come to me.” When she didn’t respond, he decided to push further. “Is everything alright at home?”

Ashley nodded. “Yeah, of course. I’m just really clumsy, sir.”

As Mr Harrington stood up, students started filing into the classroom. The unmistakeable sound of whispers informed them both that the large bruise hadn’t gone unnoticed. He turned back to Ashley briefly before walking up to the front of the classroom to get two hall passes. He handed one to Ashley and gave the second to MJ before she could take her seat across the aisle. “At least get yourself checked out by the school nurse. Michelle can go with you.”

This was definitely the last thing Ashley had wanted. She was thankful for the brief silence as MJ walked with her down the now-empty school corridors, carrying both her own bag and Ashley’s. MJ had even wrapped an arm around her waist when her steps fumbled from putting too much weight on her injured ankle. In the nurse's office, MJ helped Ashley up onto a bed and sat next to her silently as the nurse checked her over. The nurse was just as suspicious as Mr Harrington was.

“Miss Sampson, can you tell me how this happened?” The nurse asked as she placed a cold compress against Ashley's face, advising her to keep holding it against the bruise. She then perched on a chair at the of the bed and began wrapping Ashley's ankle. Ashley winced slightly as she pressed down on her ankle particularly hard. Through gritted teeth, she replied to the nurse.

“I was carrying groceries upstairs, but I tripped on a broken step and smacked my face on one of the stairs.” Ashley hoped her story was believable enough, seeing as she couldn’t tell the truth. That actually, she had gigantic wings and had been attacked on top of a building by what she suspected to be Japanese thugs... Yeah, that probably wasn’t going to go down too well. The nurse seemed to buy it, as she didn’t question Ashley any further. Instead, she told Ashley to rest for a bit, while keeping the ice-pack against her face. The nurse told MJ to watch Ashley for any signs of concussion before she left the two in the office to attend to an incident that had happened in the gym. It was only once the nurse had left that MJ spoke up.

“So, what really happened?” she asked. MJ tried to keep her tone of voice neutral, but she could hear the undercurrent of worry.

“Like I said, I tripped over...”

“Bullshit!” MJ exclaimed. Ashley turned on her side, placing her back to her friend. “Is this because of the Stark Internship? Did your parents do this?”

Ashley huffed but refused to turn to face MJ. “No, it has got nothing to do with that. Nobody hit me. I just fell over. So just leave it alone.”

But MJ didn’t want to leave it alone. “You know this isn’t right, don’t you? Why are you letting them get away with treating you like this?”

Ashley's patience was wearing thin. She was exhausted, her whole body ached, and she was paranoid that someone could be watching her right this second. She sat up, wincing as she jostled her ankle, which was propped up on a pillow. “What part of nothing happened don’t you understand?” Ashley seethed. MJ looked taken aback for a moment before she schooled her expression into its usual indifferent facade. “My parents did not hurt me last night. They weren’t even home when it happened!”

MJ sat back down in the chair and crossed her arms across her chest. Clearly something in Ashley’s expression told her that her friend was telling the truth, so she decided to leave it be. Five minutes passed in agonising silence before MJ spoke up again. “Did you get my text this morning?” she mumbled, pretending to read the book she had plucked from her backpack. But she couldn’t really focus and instead kept stealing glances at Ashley when she wasn’t looking, afraid she would disappear before her eyes.

“Y-Yeah I did...” Ashley paused, wondering how best to turn her friend down. “I don’t think coming over is a great idea this weekend.” Ashley stared down at her lap to keep from seeing the hurt expression that was no doubt on her friend's face. But Ashley couldn’t risk bringing MJ into the drama that was now her life. She couldn’t put her in the line of fire like that.

Ashley had expected MJ to start shouting at her again, or to call her names, anything really except the muttered ‘whatever’ she received. It hurt, but Ashley knew it was the right thing to do, but that didn’t stop a stray tear running down her cheek. The pair stayed in total silence for the next half hour until the nurse came back and gave Ashley the all-clear to return to lessons. MJ ignored Ashley for the rest of the day, and despite how much that was what Ashley wanted, she couldn’t deny the pain she felt.

By her last lesson that day – art – Ashley was struggling to maintain her focus. She was trying to complete the write-up to submit with her portfolio, but every time she stared down at the page the words started to move and blend together. The staring and the near constant stream of whispers she had been surrounded with all day did not help her at all either. At first she tried to focus her hearing to check if perhaps there was someone nearby watching her or following her, but it only served to amplify the voices of her fellow classmates. Her paranoia was putting her on edge, and she couldn’t even find solace in the library at lunch time as even that proved to be too noisy.

As soon as the final bell rang, signalling the end of the school day, she was quick to leave her art classroom and hurried down the corridor to collect the study books from her locker she would need over the weekend. She tried to block out as much sound as she could as she busied herself in her locker, so when Peter came up behind her, she couldn’t hear him calling her name. When he tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention, Ashley gasped loudly and quickly spun around, pressing herself up against the lockers, a frightened expression on her face. Peter was quick to take a step back, his eyes never leaving Ashley’s.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to creep up on you.” Peter bashfully scratched the back of his head, doing his best to look guilty for scaring his friend. “Are you ready to head out?”

Ashley nodded her head and quickly closed her locker. Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see Ned and MJ stood at the other end of the corridor, watching her. MJ’s eyebrows were narrowed, and she had her arms crossed against her chest. She was giving off an angry aura, to which Ashley sighed in relief. As long as MJ was angry at her, just maybe she would be safe. Now she just had to work on keeping Peter safe as well. If someone was watching her, they were probably watching as Peter and her climbed into a black Audi that was parked up in front of the school.

She greeted Happy, who did a double-take when he saw the kid. He was clearly just going to wave them off or grunt out a half-arsed greeting of his own until he saw the large bruise that Ashley was really trying to cover up. She wished she had money for make-up, or even knew how to apply it. It would have certainly spared her a lot of grief today.

“Jesus kid… Did you get into a fight at school or something?”

Ashley couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle at that. “No, I tripped over. Wasn’t looking where I was putting my feet.”

“Great… How many more uncoordinated teens is Tony going to let into his highly dangerous lab?” Happy mumbled more to himself than anything but both Peter and Ashley heard, and both tried to stifle snorts of laughter.

Peter spent much of the car ride to the tower rabbiting on about some robotics project he was working on with Ned over the weekend. Ashley distracted herself by looking through some more texts she had received on her phone whilst she had been in school.

**_Karen <3: _ ** _How was school today? Let me know if you want to have a chat and I’ll give you a call. 14:38pm_

**_Fogggy:_ ** _Do you want to meet up for some lunch tomorrow? We can go back to that café and get mint mochas! 15:07pm_

**_Matty:_ ** _I’ve been working a source. Meet us tomorrow around 12. Karen and Foggy want to see you. 15:19pm_

**_Matty:_ ** _Also, I hope everything’s ok. Let me know if you need anything. 15:21pm_

Once they’d arrived at the tower, both teens headed straight for the lab, after FRIDAY notified him both ‘Boss’ and ‘Lady Boss’ were in meetings until four-thirty. As they entered the lab, FRIDAY had another announcement for them, stating that all school work had to be completed before they could do any tinkering in the lab. Sighing, Peter pulled his homework out of his backpack and sat at his desk, staring at the bottles of web-fluid every so often as he worked on the algebra homework that was due in on Monday. Ashley had chuckled to herself at the protocol, which had been named the ‘All Work and No Play’ protocol. Having finished all of her own work, Ashley settled down at her desk, which was now considerably less bare than it had been on Wednesday. There was a stack of books on one corner: Advanced Coding, Troubleshoot Your Code and How Not to Destroy Humanity: A Guide to Building AI. On top of the books was also a collection of research papers, all published by one Dr Bruce Banner. In the middle of the desk sat a sleek silver laptop. It was much slimmer than the one she was currently borrowing from the school, and when she picked it up, it must have only weighed a fraction of the bulky school laptop. Next to the laptop was a brand new Stark Pad, decorated with an Iron Man cover to protect it. There was a pink sticky note on top of the cover, messy writing indicating that it was perhaps written out quite hastily.

_These are yours to keep. There are basic apps and programs on them, but if you need any other programs downloading let me know. FRIDAY will enact the All Work protocol, so make sure your school work is done first. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Tony._

“I can get you a new cover for your Stark Pad if you like,” Peter spoke up from the desk in front of her. “I think a Spider-Man cover would look best. Or if you wanna annoy Mr Stark, we could get you a Captain America cover.” Peter snickered at the thought himself. He pulled out his own Stark Pad, which had a red and blue colour scheme, with black lines drawn across it in spider-web patterns.

“I probably shouldn’t be in the business of annoying my new boss,” she countered. “But a Black Widow themed cover would look pretty awesome.”

Peter grinned widely. “We should make one!” Peter then proceeded to waffle on about how he could probably create one with Mr Stark’s 3D printer.

Ashley left Peter to it and opened up the laptop. It had an incredibly fast boot-up time, she noticed as the home screen had loaded in less than a minute. She was quick to set up a password for the computer before she started browsing through the programmes Mr Stark had installed on the system. She dug her notepad out of the desk drawer and had flicked to the rough designs she had drawn up for Spider-Man’s web-shooters. She stood up and walked over to Peter’s desk, where the boy was humming along to himself, earphones in his ears as he tried to rush through his homework. Once he’d noticed her presence, Peter pulled one of the earphones out of his ears, letting it dangle above the edge of the desk.

“Hey, can I borrow those prototype web-shooters?” she asked. Her eyes flickered down to the page Peter was working on and caught onto the problems on the page. “Also, number twelve is wrong. X equals sixteen, not twenty-three.”

Peter thrust the web-shooters towards her as he re-read the problem and his working out. “Shit, you’re right. Thanks!”

Upon returning to her desk, Ashley started working on creating a user-friendly interface for the web-slinger, based on her sketches and notes from Wednesday. She was about an hour into her code when Mr Stark entered the lab. He watched the pair as Ashley typed out on the laptop keyboard at incredible speed and Peter rushed through his homework. A small smile stretched across his face as he watched the two teens working hard before he made his presence known.

“Afternoon kiddies. How was school?” The smile didn’t last once Ashley lifted her head up, jade eyes meeting Mr Stark’s gaze. “What the hell happened, kid?” Tony gestured to the right side of his face and then pointed at Ashley. He walked over to her desk and pulled a chair over, sitting in front of the girl. He held her face in his hands and gently prodded the bruise with his thumb, eliciting a sharp hiss from the young girl.

“I got into a fight with some stairs. The stairs won.” She spoke with a dry tone, a humourless smile on her face as Tony inspected the bruise closely.

“Did you at least get a few hits in on the stairs?” Tony asked. The concerned tone in his voice, outweighing the humour of the question. He very gently pressed the pad of his thumb down on her cheekbone, which was a furious shade of purple. Ashley twitched in her seat, a small whimper escaping her lips. Although some of the swelling had gone down after the time she spent in the nurse’s office earlier that morning, it still stung.

“I think when my foot went through the bottom step, it splintered, so the stairs didn’t get away totally unscathed.”

Tony’s eyes then dropped to her feet underneath the table, a slither of a bandage peeking out above her tattered converse on her left foot. He shook his head as he stood up, placing his chair back at his own desk. “Geez kid… It doesn’t feel like you’ve broken your cheekbone or anything. It’s just a bad bruise. Do we need to wrap you up in bubble wrap?”

“No, sir. I’ll be more careful.” Ashley untucked her hair from behind her ear and let it fall in front of her face as she turned back to her laptop.

“What are you working on there anyway?” Tony inquired. He walked back over to Ashley and stood behind her, eyes scanning over the meticulous code on screen. “Talk me through it.”

Ashley cleared her throat and gestured to the rough sketches on her notepad. “It’s an interface for the new web-shooters. I’ll need a full use of the web-fluid’s capabilities so that different actions can be assigned, but so far this would enable Spider-Man to be able to cycle through the different fluid-types that would be loaded into the shooter. It would be a holographic interface that would be programmed into the web-shooters but could also be voice controlled for easy access.”

“Wow kid… And you’ve done that in the last hour?” Ashley nodded. “Great job. Did you hear that Pete?”

“Yeah, that’s so awesome! I’ve been working on compressing the web-fluid further so that we can fit the same amount currently into those disks. Maybe once that’s done, we could try them out in the new shooters?”

“Brilliant idea! But do your homework first. Ashley, is yours done?” Peter huffed but nonetheless turned back to his workbook. He only had two questions left, so he would power through those as quickly as possible.

“Yes, Mr Stark.” To prove it, she pulled her maths book out of her bag and showed her the completed exercise that Peter was currently carrying out. “Oh! And thank you for the laptop and the Stark Pad.” She placed her school books away and pulled out the folder she had been carrying around with her since Wednesday evening, with the completed and signed internship contract. She handed it over to Tony, who was quick to look over the last page. Ashley waited with bated breath as Tony skimmed over the contact details, bank account details and the signature she had forged at the bottom.

“Perfect! Welcome to the team officially, Miss Sampson.”


End file.
